Putz Putts, Disrespecting the Dead

You'd never know it occurred thanks to the US media that dutifully ignored the story, but Barack Obama used Memorial Day as an opportunity to squeeze in a round of golf for the ninth weekend in a row.

Can you imagine David Cameron enjoying a round of golf on Remembrance Sunday? It would be inconceivable for the British Prime Minister to do so, and not just because of the usually dire weather at that time of the year. Above all, it would be viewed as an act of extremely bad taste on a day when the nation remembers and mourns her war dead. I can’t imagine the PM even considering it, and I’m sure his advisers would be horrified at the idea. And if the prime minister ever did play golf on such a sacrosanct day he would be given a massive drubbing by the British press, and it would never be repeated.

Contrast this with President Obama’s decision to play golf yesterday, Memorial Day, for the 70th time during his 28-month long presidency. For tens of millions of Americans, Memorial Day is a time for remembrance of the huge sacrifices made by servicemen and women on the battlefield. The president did pay his respects in the morning, laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery, but later in the day traveled to Fort Belvoir to play golf. The story has not been reported so far in a single US newspaper, but was made public by veteran White House correspondent Keith Koffler on his blog.

It took a British paper to report this story of Americans least favorite socialist dishonoring the dead. Obama simply doesn't know how to be Presidential, or perhaps he simply doesn't care how this will be perceived.

I can't wait until this man is driven from the office he continues to denigrate.

Letter From The Teacher #3: The Merits of Merit Pay

Anytown High School, Any State, USA

To: Ms. Rodriguez
From: Mr. English Teacher
Re: Answers to Your Questions

Dear Ms. Rodriguez:

Thanks for your e-mail. Alex is doing just fine. After we worked on the rough draft of his research paper last week, his final draft was much improved and his final score was 96%. Alex is a great kid, but he could stand to spend a little more time on his writing.

I was also intrigued by your question about merit pay. I don’t believe our district is currently considering it, but it does come up from time to time, so I’ll take this opportunity to explain it. Please let me know if you need any additional information.

A recurring issue in education is that teacher pay is determined primarily by two factors: longevity and formal education (degrees). For instance, in our state, one cannot be a teacher without at least a bachelor’s degree, and pay scales are based on that minimum level of education. If I have a master’s degree, in our school district, I earn only an additional $1500 per year. That’s an extra $125.00 per month before taxes. If I have a doctorate, I make $3000.00 more per year than a teacher with the same number of years of service and a bachelor’s degree. That’s an extra $250.00 per month before taxes.

That amount of money sounds pretty good, and $250.00 is certainly quite a bit of money for me, but the problem is that graduate credits are very expensive. Earning a master’s commonly takes two years, and a doctorate, at least another two. Tuition costs for a master’s can easily run $20,000.00, and at least that much for a doctorate. With a master’s degree or a doctorate, it would take me more than 13 years to break even on tuition costs, and I’m not including all of the incidental costs of college in time, fuel, computers, books, etc. Economically, at least, any teacher would be far better off with a part-time business or with working during the summer when possible. If a teacher earned a master’s or doctorate after working for five or more years, they’d probably never break even.

Something that many people don’t realize is that few teachers have three months off in the summer. Not only that, they’re not actually paid for 12 months of work, but only for the part of the year that they actually work. Their paychecks are spread out over the entire year, just like normal people. For example, I’m not done with school until the second week of June, and I have to be back the third week of August. All teachers have continuing education requirements. They must continually go to school and be able to document it in order to periodically renew their teaching credentials. Much, if not all, of that continuing education must be done on their own time and with their own money. That leaves the summer. It’s a rare year that I don’t spend at least two weeks of my ever-shortening summer in classes.

Many teachers are like me; they enjoy learning new things and like to further their educations so that they can be more effective teachers. I have nearly enough credits for a master’s degree, and I suppose I’ll get around to finishing one some day, but there is really no financial incentive for me to do that.

In fact, the only way to really make any money in education is to go into administration. Principals commonly make double the salary of well-paid teachers and superintendents can make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. The problem is that really good teachers usually don’t want to be administrators—they want to teach—so there is no way for them to make more money in education except for their yearly step increases and whatever raises their school boards are able to provide, which these days, will likely be few and far between.

Many well-meaning people—and some not-so-well-meaning people—would like to see merit pay for teachers. I’m not reflexively opposed to this concept, but the devil is very much in the details. Those who mean well recognize that the finest, hardest working teachers are paid no better than the teachers who do only enough to meet basic standards of performance. As one of those hard-working teachers, I’m certainly sympathetic to that concept, and if my evaluations are to be believed--if my supervisors aren't incompetent or playing some sort of ironic joke--I’m a very good teacher too (that, accompanied by a dollar, will buy coffee at any McDonald’s in the nation). On the other hand, some want merit pay as a means of promoting even more reliance on big government in the form of mandatory, high stakes tests (MHSTs). They want merit pay to be mostly, or entirely, tied to MHST scores. Let’s examine the second group first.

Once a government bureaucracy is established, it tends to do everything possible to increase its size and power so that it will become politically difficult, even impossible, for it to ever be shut down. Ronald Reagan said that the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see is a government bureaucracy, and he was right. The bureaucracy that supports MHSTs is very large and powerful and many billions of dollars are involved.

It you’re part of a MHST bureaucracy, you would certainly want teacher’s pay to be based on how well their students scored on your MHSTs. This is so because:

(1) It would force teachers to spend most, if not all, of their time teaching to that test to maximize their income.

(2) It would create an enormous, additional market for supplementary materials to help kids pass the tests, greatly benefiting the manufacturers of the tests, whose campaign contributions will help to keep in office the politicians who make your bureaucracy eternal.

(3) If they’re spending all of their time scrabbling for dollars, teachers, school administrators and school boards won’t be coming after you for your poorly written tests, and questionable policies and decisions, and they’ll tend to be on your side in any battles with parents.

(4) All of this maximizes your power because you’ll have near-total control over the schools and everyone associated with them.

(5) Your attempts to raise your own salaries will meet with little or no opposition from below.

On the school level, the problems are even worse. Let’s put aside the fact that schools would become nothing more than test-prep and test-taking factories with athletic teams, and look at some of the real problems involved. How do we evaluate teachers who teach subjects that aren’t tested? At the moment, most states test only math, English, social studies and science. Educrats would “solve” that problem by mandating tests for everything imaginable, thus spending even more money. Is that really most, or all, of what we want schooling to be: preparing for and taking MHSTs?

The biggest problem is that test results don’t accurately reflect a teacher’s work. They simply can’t. You see, the only thing any teacher can do, the only thing the best teacher in the world can do, is to provide an opportunity for learning. It is up to the students, and their parents, to take advantage of that opportunity. Many kids don’t take full advantage of that opportunity. Some more or less ignore it.

I’m always amazed when teachers are outraged and offended because teenagers behave like teenagers. Didn’t anyone tell them that was likely to happen? I expect and delight in it—it’s part of the great fun of teaching high school kids—but my basic rule—you don’t get to behave rudely or stupidly—stands. The point is that some teenagers simply aren’t going to recognize the value of taking advantage of their educational opportunities. They’re not going to do reading assignments. They’re not going to complete and hand in their work. Homework? You must be kidding! Most will do just enough of any kind of schoolwork necessary to avoid failure. Some won’t do even that much, and their parents won’t make them.

The problem is not that contemporary kids are stupid—they’re certainly not. Many people would be amazed at the kinds of things, and their difficulty, kids are expected to learn. I grew up in a world without computers. Merely grasping that technology and all it entails puts today’s kids far beyond past generations in significant ways. Yet, school is about far more than the accumulation of mere knowledge as evidenced by the ability to regurgitate it in specific ways on specific tests.

I live by a simple aphorism: never underestimate their intelligence, but don’t overestimate their information. Teenagers are very inexperienced in many ways. Despite having at their fingertips access to a body of knowledge unprecedented in history, they simply don’t know what educated adults know. Many know that The Beatles were a band, but beyond that know nothing of their significance. They know that man has walked on the Moon, but many think the first man to set foot on the Moon was Lance Armstrong. In other words, teenagers are simply teenagers. If it hasn’t happened in the last two years it may as well have happened two thousand years ago. Kids tend to live in the moment. Many don’t know the definitions of common words, and most can’t tell you the difference between Conservative and Liberal political philosophy, or have any real idea why they should care.

But we must hold teachers accountable! Sure, and I’m absolutely accountable. If I don’t show up on time often enough, I’m in big trouble. If I don’t prepare, if I don’t teach properly, if I fail in any one of a hundred ways, I have no doubt that someone else will be glad to take my place and will be given that opportunity. This is an understanding I share with my principal. What I cannot do is guarantee that any given student will produce a given score on a MHST. Yes, I can be reasonably certain of the scores of most of my kids, but every year, truly exceptional students do poorly and truly poor students do exceptionally. I’d like to take credit for that sort of thing—I think—but it’s irrational to think that I can or should. Please understand, the MHST scores of my students are so consistently high that I’d likely benefit if my pay was mostly or wholly based on that criteria, but I’m still ambivalent about it.

Here’s a true story: A number of years ago, my school handed out “Teacher of the Quarter” awards. Periodically, one teacher would be given a nice little trophy as the teacher of the quarter. I noticed that none of those receiving the “honor” were being rewarded for actual teaching, but only for high profile things like organizing a prom, a dance, some extra-curricular event or something similar. It was with considerable amazement that I was, out of the blue, given one of the awards. I spoke with an assistant principal and asked why I was so honored. I was surprised to learn that he recommended me for good teaching, and they had never before thought to give the award for good teaching! Don’t get me wrong, these were all good administrators in a good school, but it had never occurred to them to actually reward exceptional teaching with a “Teacher of the Quarter” award! Not long thereafter, they stopped giving them out altogether. It seems that people were getting too jealous and nasty about it when they didn’t get one and the principals were tired of taking the flak.

Do you base merit pay on the number of students who pass a teacher’s classes? If so, won’t you be ensuring that kids who should not pass, pass? Do you base it on teacher evaluations? If so, won’t you be encouraging cronyism and favoritism by principals who will tend to want to reward those who make their jobs easier rather than those who actually excel and are, as a result, more demanding? Will a teacher’s pay change from year to year based on whatever criteria are involved? If so, it might take only one bad group of kids—and believe me, teachers get those from time to time—to cause many a teacher to default on their mortgage.

I’m sure you know people in your line of work who are ruthless, unprincipled self-promoters. We have them in education too, and those are exactly the kinds of people who mediocre administrators tend to support and praise. When you reward the wrong people, the right people notice and tend to do less. When you reward those who truly deserve it, good administrators can use that example to motivate others. But all too often, human nature interferes with the best intentions, and people who don’t deserve it end up with the benefits.

So as I said, I’m not absolutely against merit pay, but it must be based in reality, a solid understanding of human nature, and not designed to build bureaucracies. Sadly, I’ve never seen a merit pay system that meets these simple criteria. If I cannot directly earn such benefits through my own efforts, what good is it? If, under such a system, I can work harder than anyone else, and my excellence is reflected in year after year of evaluations, yet I earn not a penny more, what—other than self-motivation--is my incentive to keep producing at that level? By the same token, if a mediocre teacher is rewarded for their level of effort, what’s their incentive to improve? Will they even be capable of recognizing that they’re anything but mediocre?

Well, I’ve rattled on long enough. I hope I’ve at least raised some of the most pertinent issues. As always, please let me know if there is anything else I can do to be helpful.

Yours,

Mr. English Teacher

Thank You

This weekend I was fortunately enough to be able to exercise my rights as an American thanks to the sacrifice of generations men and women who came before us. They laid down their lives for us, and I try to keep that sacrifice in my heart. Because of them, every day is a Memorial Day, a tribute to the freedoms they won for us with their lives.

"Thank you" just doesn't seem like enough, but it is sincerely meant.

So, thank you.

Comic Writings, May 30, 2011, Part II

Welcome back to the second half of the literary bird droppings of my high school students. I hope the first half, posted May 23 (here) made your week a bit more mirthful. Let’s begin with a slightly skewed observation about Shakespeare’s classic, “Julius Caesar”:

What Was the Soothsayer’s Warning to Caesar?: “Beware the eyes of March.”

Use “Debauchery” In A Sentence: “The family had a lovely evening of debauchery.”

Really? “When debauchery is accomplished, it is good for the soul.”

They did?!: “The couple kissed debaucherily under the fascinating mistletoe.”

It Is?! What’s Your Worst?: “Debauchery is one of my best qualities.”

Uh, OK…: “One of the great things about the book is it’s a subtle movie.”

Uh, OK Too…: “Movies always put books into a better perspective to me because I can visualize what my mind is imagining and it is easier for me to comprehend.”

Contemptible Crops Department: “There are students who are contempt with getting by just barley in school.”

Well, He Was a Fighter…:

Q: The great Muslim warrior who fought the Crusaders was?

A: “Muhammed Ali.”

I Had No Idea He Was A Muslim!:

Q: The great Muslim warrior who fought the Crusaders was?

A: “Chuck Norris.”

Hope and Change:

Q: The great Muslim warrior who fought the Crusaders was?

A: Obama.”

Yo, Adrienne!:

Q: The great Muslim warrior who fought the Crusaders was?

A: Rocky Balboa.”

Give Peace a Chance:

Q: The great Muslim warrior who fought the Crusaders was?

A: Ghandi.”

Uh, Could We Have a Noun or Two, Please?: “There was a lot of feudal in the Medieval.”

They Pray to A Pop Singer?: “The Catholics pray to Madonna.”

She Did It Where?!: “Madonna was a virgin who gave birth to Jesus in the Bible.”

Like A Virgin: “Jesus’ mommy was Madonna.”

In The Where of Whom?: “Jesus presided in the woom of Madonna

Did He Know That?: “Jesus’ dad was the original Madonna.”

As Opposed To Overlooking It With her Nose?: “The Madonna stood shyly,
overlooking the temple with her eyes.”

Biological and Theological Confusion Department: “Jesus was born inside Madonna.”

I Hate It When That Happens: “She has a propensity to drik too much.”

So That’s How They Do it!: “Teachers degrade your paper to find out your grade.”

I Knew Football Was Bad! “I seemed senile after the football game.”

Overheard In Class: “It would be good if it was better.”

Uh, what? “I’m not saying that women should be under the control of their husbands, but it’s always good to be that way sometimes.”

Tell Me More About Your Family…: “My Dad should have been more affectionate and loving toward her wife.”

Overheard In Class: “Do Muslims have belly buttons?”

And We All Know How Much That Can Hurt: “Friends can either help you or hurt you in the end.”

So, They’re Making Them With Radioactive Sterno These Days? “The heat in the dessert was perpetual.”

So, They Worship Shiny Cloth?: “It should never be taken to the point of satin worshipping…”

The Reality of Teenage Dating In Poetry:

“You mean the world to me
It’s like we were meant to be.
April twenty-six was the day
We are still together,
And it’s almost May.

Truer Words Were Never Written: “Teachers know why animals eat their young.”

Question Asked Of The Teacher: “Mr. McDaniel, can I use ‘thrust’ in my poem? I’m not using it in a bad way!”

No Kidding! Department: “Some girls are Machiavellian in high school.”

Overheard in Class: “If I have to pee, it’s going to be on you!”

Identity Crisis Department: “’The Red Wheelbarrow’ by William Carlos Williams is a poem about a farmer who lives on a ranch.”

Singing Cleaning Shop Department: “’Mr. Tanner’ by Harry Chapin is about a man named Mr. Tanner who has a cleaning shop that was pressured from his friends to go to New York and sing.”

And I Think We All Know How Much That Can Hurt: “The theme of the book is emphasized at the end when George shoots Lennie in the forest.”

School Cannibalism Department: (Announcement) “We will also have a picnic in the student body—I mean the student lobby…”

Teenage Poetic Angst Department:

“We were one
We had fun
I used to be happy
Now I feel crappy.”

Self Love Department:

“I remember you always
And years from now
As we grow old together
The memories we’ll share
The situations we’ll encounter
Won’t be equaled by anyone else…
My friend, my navel.”

A Poem Only a Dentist Could Love:

“As we sit in the garden of youth cherishing a moment forever
The world spins everlasting
My heart beats like a humming bird’s swift flying motion
as you say your fillings for me.”

Overheard in Class: “If you went to prison, you’d be screwed.”

Literary Confusion Department: “To give up the tension to explore more humanity does not do the novel justice because Ken Kesey wrote it intentionally or not to integrate the tension.”

Unintentional Truth Department: “Old people’s teeth are usually transient.”

One Of These Days These Boots Are Gonna Walk All Over You: “A man named Dr. Sayer tried to heel many people…”

Uh, What? Department: “It [being awakened from a catatonic state] will be defecating if it will ever happen.”

Teacher Question: What is a gerund?

Student Answer: “Isn’t that like a little rat?”

Literary Confusion Department: “Dr. Sayer comes along a patient named Lucy and does an experiment in which he throws a tennis ball at her and discovers that they all have reflexes.”

Found In the “Name” Blank of a Vocabulary Worksheet: “Noun”

Literary Confusion Department, #2192: “In the story, Curley’s wife is called a tart. That word resembles a slut to us today.”

I Had No Idea They Could Talk: “A great cry burst from her hips…”

Being Compacted Would Probably Do That! Department: “It teaches compaction and doing the honorable thing by your friend, even if it kills you inside.

He Held Her What/Where?!: So Curley’s wife kept screaming, so Lennie just kept holding her titer and titer…”

Ouch!: “George was right in shooting Lennie in the end.”

So, That Concludes It Then?: “The conclusion was very conclusive.”

Media Ignores NY Rep Anthony Weiner's Cyber-Sex Story

NY Congressman Anthony Weiner was caught sending pictures of his uh, thinly-covered namesake, to a young woman who was not his new wife. This is the kind of story that ends political careers and forces resignations, but the MSM is dutifully ignoring this transgression... for now.

His wife won't buy his alibi. Neither should we.

Weiner should resign in disgrace, but I doubt the New York Democrat has that much honor.

The Guerena Shooting: Initial Analysis

As regular readers know, I’m a USAF veteran (I was a security police officer in SAC during the cold war) and have extensive civilian police service, including SWAT duty. I have been writing on the Erik Scott case In Las Vegas since August of 2010. Those extensive posts are available in our Erik Scott archive.

The Jose Guerena shooting, which took place on May 5, is similar in many ways. My co-blogger, Bob’s May 25 story on the Pajamas Media site (here) has stimulated considerable interest in the story on the Net. What I’ve yet to see is concise information that would allow people who don’t have police and/or tactical team backgrounds to better understand what appears to have happened in this case. To that end, I’ll explain why SWAT teams exist, what purpose(s) they should serve, how they should work, and proper police procedure in any case where the police have shot a citizen.

I’ll also analyze the brief—less then 60 seconds—police video of the actual shooting (it may be found here). Please keep in mind that I am working only from media and Internet accounts, including the aforementioned video and other documents released by the Pima County Sheriff’s Office, the law enforcement entity involved. As such, I don’t have all of the facts, and as Donald Rumsfeld might say, there are unknown unknowns. In other words, I don’t know enough about this specific incident to know precisely what I don’t know.

That said, I hope to produce at least a reasonable foundation for understanding what seems to have happened on May 5. Go here and here for local media accounts of the incident.

UPDATE 052911, 1329 CT: Go here for an updated news story reporting that Guerena, according to the medical examiner, was actually hit 22 times, not 60 as was originally reported by the doctors who examined him. See the "Analysis" section below for additional commentary.

SWAT TEAMS: RATIONALE AND REALITY

Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams have, over the last thirty years, become relatively common in American law enforcement. Their primary reason for being is to provide a highly trained, enhanced capability beyond the training and equipment available to patrol officers. Patrol officers are most commonly armed only with their handguns and perhaps .12 gauge shotguns in their patrol vehicles, though some police agencies have begun to also equip them with carbines, such as variants of the AR-15 family. This is rational in that the effective range of shotguns with reasonable accuracy is essentially the same as handguns. Many people think shotguns are extraordinarily powerful, long range weapons, but in fact, their enhanced effectiveness—compared with handgun ammunition—depends entirely on keeping the shot column together, which again, limits them to essentially the same practical range as handguns. Patrol officers commonly wear bullet-resistant vests (there is no such thing as a bullet-proof vest) sufficient only to stop common handgun rounds. Tactical vests such as those worn by SWAT operators are simply too large, bulky and heavy for daily patrol wear.

The classic scenario for a SWAT callout is a barricaded hostage taker, a situation that commonly ends with a negotiator talking the suspect or suspects out without bloodshed, or more rarely, with a single shot from a sniper’s rifle. More rare still is an assault by SWAT operators. This is rare because no matter how much SWAT types love to do this sort of thing, it is horrendously dangerous to everyone involved. SWAT teams are also commonly employed for the service of no-knock warrants, where absolute surprise, speed, and overwhelming action are a necessity to minimize danger and prevent the destruction of evidence.

SWAT teams are very expensive to equip, train and to maintain. Generally speaking, only major cities have dedicated SWAT teams whose focus is constant training. Such officers generally have no other primary duties and work together on a daily basis learning and honing their craft.

It’s particularly important to understand that one of the fundamental principles of professional SWAT philosophy and training is that each operator be superior to his police peers in physical prowess, mental and emotional stability, quick thinking skills, situational awareness, shooting skills, and every other skill specific to SWAT operations. What this essentially means is that SWAT operators are expected to be faster, smarter and more capable than the average cop. Where most officers would shoot, and shoot a great many rounds, they are expected to be able to take the extra few seconds—or fractions of a second—necessary to more fully and accurately analyze any situation before shooting. And when they shoot, they are expected to do it with far greater restraint and accuracy than most officers.

Note the Navy SEAL who took out Osama Bin Laden with two rounds and two rounds only, one to the chest, one to the head. This is a classic example of cool, perfect shot placement under stress, and is precisely the sort of thing SWAT troops are supposed to be able to do. After all, if they are no better at this sort of thing than the average street cop, all that has been done is to give average street cops more destructive, longer ranged weapons.

In recognition of the generally greater danger SWAT personnel face when properly employed, most teams are armed with fully automatic weapons, such as the ubiquitous H&K MP5 in 9mm. Many also use AR-15 variant carbines in .223 with 16” or shorter barrels. So arming SWAT teams is reasonable and necessary—again, if they are properly employed—but it is also a contributing factor to many potential problems.

Many people assume that the police are generally expert shots. Not so. Many officers aren’t particularly fond of guns, and a surprising number own no firearms other than their issued handgun. Because ammunition is expensive, particularly when one is equipping an entire police force, most Law Enforcement Organizations (LEOs) tend to hold qualifications only once a year. The courses of fire for such qualifications tend to be relatively easy, require less than 50 rounds, and qualifying scores are generous. Officers are often allowed to shoot as many times as necessary to achieve a barely passing score. Most LEOs do not provide practice ammunition for their officers, so a great many officers only practice with their handguns consists of their annual qualification shoot. They may, or may not, clean their weapons thereafter. A great many civilians are far more proficient than most police officers simply because they are more interested in firearms and shooting, and are willing to take the time to practice.

During my police days, my most effective training was that I undertook on my own time and money, taking courses such as those offered by Chuck Taylor, among others, where I learned proper submachine gun handling and tactical employment. I am, in fact, certified by Taylor’s American Small Arms Academy to teach, among other things, the submachine gun. I also hold NRA training certification. No such training was available though my LEO which simply could not afford it, particularly for an entire SWAT team.

It is at least in part in recognition of this reality that SWAT teams try to obtain advanced training, and sufficient time and money to practice—a great deal--with their weapons. Exposed only to cinematic machine gun handling, many people have formed a very wrong idea of the proper employment of submachine guns, which consists primarily of spraying magazines of ammunition with a seemingly endless number of rounds from the hip, ventilating the landscape as far as the eye can see. In reality, such weapons should virtually always be employed only from the shoulder, sights must be used, and only two to three round bursts employed. With proper training, this is much faster and far more accurate. In SWAT missions, putting the minimum number of rounds necessary precisely on target at precisely the right moment with no margin for error is the expected level of performance. In fact, many real pros consider any mission where they had to fire a single round a failure. They understand that this will certainly not always be possible, but it is their goal.

Most LEOs cannot afford a full-time, dedicated SWAT team. There is simply not sufficient call for it, and it is far too expensive. They deal with this by appointing various officers from various bureaus to a team, equipping them as they can afford, and indulging in what training they can afford. This is a significant limitation because when the team trains, all of those officers are not doing their usual duties, which often requires calling in off-duty officers to work overtime shifts to cover for missing SWAT troops. Many agencies try to minimize this significant problem by forming joint teams comprised of officers from two or more local agencies. While this helps somewhat with costs, it produces unique problems in terms of arguments over authority, leadership, cost sharing, and a variety of other issues.

The paramilitary structure of LEOs can also interfere with proper staffing of a SWAT team. Ideally, because of the very nature of such teams and the situations for which they should be employed, the most qualified people, regardless of their daily rank or position, should be placed in each and every team position, from leadership positions, to snipers. Unfortunately, rank has its privileges, and people with rank are often placed in leadership positions commensurate with their rank in their LEO while far more capable people are passed over entirely or relegated to entry or perimeter team duties. I know of one team that appointed as its primary sniper—they’re most commonly called “marksmen” or something similarly non-threatening sounding—a detective who had never before fired a rifle, and whose entry level skill was far less than that of many available officers. It is this odd internal dynamic that might see a former special forces troop expert in small unit tactics, relegated to the most distant position on a perimeter or doing coffee and sandwich runs for the command post. Less competent and experienced "leaders" tend not to want far more experienced and capable underlings too close lest they look bad by comparison.

Beyond the enormous expense of time and salary for training a team is the cost of equipment. To equip a single operator with body armor, handgun, submachine gun, helmet, eyewear, radio and proper headset, Nomex protective gear, uniform, boots, and the various other necessary items can easily run to $5000.00 and more. In LEOS where shift supervisors are constantly being brow-beaten over an extra hour or two of necessary and justifiable overtime—virtually every LEO in America--such costs might as well be $500,000.00.

SWAT teams should generally be used only for high-risk situations requiring specific skills and equipment not available to a patrol force. However, many agencies have, for many years, used them for serving high-risk warrants, including arrest warrants for violent felons, and general search warrants in drug cases. While SWAT guys love to don their gear and practice their craft in the real world, this tends to develop a mindset within an agency that makes use of SWAT teams routine rather than rare. This can lead to complacency, which any competent cop can explain is potentially deadly. Particularly in drug cases, there is a heightened risk of bad information, which can lead to teams assaulting the wrong homes and even killing the wrong people. Police lore is full of such true stories, which are taught as cautionary tales in competent SWAT training.

Remember this: Your local SWAT team responding to a hostage situation in a bank where your wife works as a teller may be a highly trained, unified, competent group of operators expert in the use of their first-rate equipment and professional tactics. More likely, they’re a group of well-meaning, undertrained and underequipped cops with uninformed and inexperienced leadership. Their knowledge and skill levels will likely vary widely, and in fact, some may be less capable than many street cops. Any combination is possible, but the operator coming through the bank door with an MP5 may be expert in its use, or he may have only fired 50 rounds through the weapon a year ago at the last qualification, and have no real idea where its actual point of aim is today.

ORGANIZATION AND TACTICS:

I will not go into great detail here on specific SWAT tactics, as most importantly, the bad guys just don’t need to know. But secondarily, such information is available to those with a need to know, and in far greater detail that it is possible for me to provide in this single article.

Generally, SWAT teams are divided into command, assault, sniper and perimeter elements. The command element commonly includes the leader(s) of the team who will be responsible for making tactical plans and giving tactical orders. The sniper element will normally consist of a sniper and spotter, hopefully trained to function as two bodies sharing the same mind. Many teams can afford only one such team (a competent rifle can easily cost $3000.00 alone). If one of the members of the team is sick or unreachable when a call-out occurs, someone less trained and experienced will have to fill in—or not. The perimeter team’s job is to establish a safe perimeter around the target building or area and keep unwanted people out and the bad guys in.

It is the entry team that is of greatest interest to us here. Such elements commonly consist of an operator leading with a heavy, bullet-resistant shield or “bunker” as it is sometimes called. One or two operators are designated to break open doors using specialized tools. As soon as a door is opened, a “stack” immediately enters. A “stack” commonly consists of several men—usually three or four in addition to the man with the shield—following single file on each other’s heels through the doorway. In such stacks, operators commonly place one hand on the shoulder of the man in front of them, allowing them to stay together and to communicate readiness with a simple squeeze passed up the stack as they begin.

All police officers are taught to avoid the “fatal funnel,” or placing them selves in a narrow, tight area where it is easy for bad guys to shoot them. Being silhouetted in a doorframe is a classic example, as is being stacked up in a narrow hallway. If one can’t avoid such areas, it is imperative to minimize the time spent in them.

Each member of the “stack” has a specific area of responsibility, a portion of the space(s) they will enter they are responsible for checking out visually. Only they are authorized to engage—shoot—potential threats in their area of responsibility. This is essential because there can easily be more than one threat in more than one place. If an entire stack focuses or fires on the first perceived threat, the entire team may be wiped out by an unseen shooter. In addition, shooting in enclosed spaces is extraordinarily loud. Officers must be careful not to inadvertently deafen each other, or blind each other with the muzzle flash of a weapon fired too close to the eyes of a fellow officer. This kind of discipline requires constant training and conditioning and cool thinking under fire.

A significant part of training for entry teams and SWAT teams in general involves “deconfliction,” or muzzle awareness. Any police officer can attest to the fact that it is surprisingly easy to unintentionally point weapons at other people. In high stress situations where many people simultaneously occupy the same small place, particularly when sound and rapid movement in an unfamiliar area are also present, it is ridiculously easy to make deadly mistakes. By assigning very specific areas of responsibility, areas from which an operator’s muzzle should not stray, the possibility of accidently shooting another operator, rather than a bad guy, is minimized. It is minimized, but always a real danger, and such shootings are far more common than the police are comfortable admitting. Officers are also taught to keep their trigger fingers “in register,” or outside the trigger guard of their weapons, off the trigger, in direct contact with the frame or receiver of their weapons, until milliseconds before it is necessary to fire. This too minimizes the risk of accidental or unintentional discharges (ADs).

Generally, the stack’s duties consist of “clearing” every potential danger area in a structure. They do this by going room to room, never turning their backs—so to speak—on un-cleared rooms or areas, securing—by whatever means necessary—any hostiles. Only when the entire structure has been cleared, do other officers enter and conduct a search. Even so, no one relaxes prematurely. Properly done, a normally sized, three bedroom home may be properly cleared within a few minutes.

In some particularly dangerous cases, the stack will be preceded by one or more “flashbangs.” These are specialized hand grenades, which do not produce fragmentation, but a brilliant flash of light and very loud report, both effects being magnified by close quarters. The advantage of these devices is that they can render bad guys senseless long enough for the police to subdue them with little risk to themselves. The disadvantages are that if they detonate too close to a bad guy, they can seriously injure or kill them, and they can start fires.

Once a dynamic entry has begun, it must not hesitate. The stack must enter with speed and determination to surprise and overwhelm any resistance. Particularly in serving drug search warrants, one immediate goal is to prevent the destruction of evidence, which might be easily flushed down a toilet, for example. To that end, retreat or hesitation is not an option.

If anyone is injured, SWAT operators, as police officers, have the same duty to see that they receive aid as quickly as safety will allow.

THE LAW: SEARCH AND SEIZURE AND SHOOTING

Every aspect of search and seizure is governed by the Fourth Amendment, which states:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Despite the claims of some of the self-appointed “elite” that the language of the late 1700s cannot be read or understood by the modern liberal mind, this, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, is quite clear. If the police want to search someone’s home, they need a warrant. To get a warrant, they must have probable cause, which is defined as facts or circumstances that would lead a reasonable police officer to conclude that a crime has been committed and that a specific person has committed it. A vague, general suspicion or inference is not probable cause. Saying for instance that Joe is a drug dealer and that Steve has been seen in Joe’s company does not implicate Steve in the drug trade absent specific evidence of his involvement.

To obtain a warrant, an officer must write a complete affidavit, which, as the Fourth Amendment so clearly states, describes his probable cause, and which particularly describes the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. “Particularly” is an important word. Not only is it necessary to, for example, provide the address of a home to be searched, the home itself should be carefully described. If, for example, the SWAT team shows up at 1506 Walnut Street to search a two story red brick home with a detached single car garage and finds instead a single story ranch, painted tan with brown trim and no garage, they know something is very wrong. This is not uncommon, particularly with drug cases. Insufficient probable cause or vague descriptions will usually cause a judge, who must review each affidavit and approve each warrant, to refuse to issue a warrant.

There are exceptions to the warrant requirement, such as hot pursuit or exigent circumstances. In this case, the police apparently had a warrant. In servicing warrants, officers must commonly knock, clearly identify themselves and their purpose, and allow sufficient time for the occupants to respond. No-knock warrants may be granted, but only upon a convincing showing of specific danger and need.

Keep in mind that if anyone lies to obtain a warrant, everything that occurs as a result of the service of the faulty warrant may be tainted and many not be used in court. However, generally speaking, officers who are acting on good faith, who have no reason to believe that the warrant under which they are acting is faulty, are generally not legally liable. This, of course, does not excuse criminal behavior, negligence or incompetence.

The use of confidential informants in drug cases is always problematic. Such people are virtually always criminals and drug users and are inherently unreliable. Even so, they are often the only way to successfully penetrate drug operations. Professional, capable judges are always suspicious of such people and commonly require a higher standard of proof than just the word of a CI.

Search warrants must generally be served during the daytime, and within a specific, brief window of time, usually within 24 hours of their issuance. A judge may grant exceptions, but they must be spelled out in the warrant. After the warrant has been served, officers are required to promptly file a “return,” which is an after action report that specifically describes everything found and seized as a result of the warrant. Lying on any portion of the related paperwork is perjury, a serious criminal offense, usually a felony.

Prior to searching any home, particularly if a forced entry is likely, professional teams will have conducted sufficient surveillance, and will have produced detailed diagrams of the interior of the home, which will include likely locations of any firearms or defensive preparations, and hiding/storage places of any drugs. They will want to know how many people are usually in the home, their identities and everything about them. Even if the police cannot get inside a home, a great deal may be learned from merely observing the home and the manner in which it is constructed. Remember that professional teams try to avoid forced or “dynamic” entries because of the great danger involved. Professionals seek, prior to searching, to isolate and capture the primary suspect outside the home whenever possible. This is why careful surveillance and accurate information is so important; it can greatly lessen the risk to everyone involved.

WHEN THE POLICE MAY SHOOT:

Police officers may use deadly force when there is an imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death to them selves or another. It cannot be a possible threat that might manifest itself within the next few minutes. It must be obvious, real and about to happen at the instant that deadly force was used. If these conditions exist, an officer may use whatever force is necessary to stop the bad guy from doing whatever gave the officer justification to use deadly force in the first place. If the bad guy dies as a result of the application of that force, bad for him, but the police always shoot to stop, never to kill. If they shoot effectively—and SWAT teams are supposed to always shoot effectively and with the minimum expenditure of ammunition—the bad guy will usually be killed, but he will surely be stopped.

If a single 9mm round from an officer’s handgun stops the bad guy, that’s a good thing. If five rounds from a shotgun are reasonably required, that’s perfectly permissible under the law. However, the second a bad guy ceases to be a threat, all shooting must stop. The law--to say nothing of professionalism, common sense and decency--does not allow gratuitous magazine emptying or “me too” shooting when the danger has clearly passed.

In such circumstances, some will claim that when confronted by someone holding a gun, or even when the police suspect someone is armed—as in the Erik Scott case—the police may blithely fire away. This is dangerous nonsense. Remember that SWAT operators should be better trained and more experienced than their patrol brethren. They are expected to be able to wait those few fractions of a second longer before shooting necessary to be certain that shooting is absolutely required. In a nation with a Second Amendment, and where citizens may carry concealed handguns in most states, police officers simply cannot shoot anyone seen holding a weapon. In fact, officers deal with people who are openly carrying weapons, or who are carrying concealed weapons, every day without injuring anyone. Was this not true, our streets would be littered with the bodies of law-abiding people shot by panicky cops who had no legal reason to be certain of a threat before emptying their weapons.

Remember, again, that a SWAT team making a dynamic entry understands that citizens within might very well mistake them for home invaders and might meet them with firearms in their hands. Merely holding a firearm, or even pointing it in their general direction, does not automatically constitute an imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death, particularly for officers wearing highly effective body armor behind a bullet resistant shield. Remember too that SWAT operators are supposed to be more capable of correctly making just this kind of split second judgment.

Professional teams are extensively debriefed after each mission. Each and every discrepancy is minutely analyzed and discussed. An officer firing when he might have avoided it, or firing more than reasonably required, is in trouble. An officer crossing the bodies of his teammates with the muzzle of his weapon because he was distracted and didn’t cover his area of responsibility is likewise in trouble. SWAT teams work for perfection, but understand that human beings seldom reach it.

THE GUERENA RAID:

With all of these factors in mind, let’s analyze the 54 second video clip released by the Pima County SO. The video seems to have been shot from a helmet-mounted camera worn by an officer in the back seat of a vehicle parked in the driveway of the Guerena home. The vehicle is apparently parked behind another vehicle, which is directly in front of the garage. Throughout the video, music, apparently from the radio in the police vehicle, can be heard. As the officers are preparing to enter, I can hear them speaking, but for whatever reason, most of what they say is unintelligible. No doubt, others using other equipment might be able to more clearly hear what is being said.

Before I begin a second by second breakdown of the action, some general observations. Not counting the two officers who are apparently in the vehicle—one in the driver’s seat clearly in the view of the camera as the video begins and the officer recording the incident—there are as many as seven officers clustered around the door and front yard of the home. And I do mean clustered, as in having no apparently coherent organization. In fact, throughout the tape, they appear to be more or less constantly shifting their positions, apparently aimlessly.

The viewpoint of the camera is apparently through the left side, back window of the police vehicle and is slightly to the right of the plane of the front door of the home. Immediately to the front of the police vehicle is a garage, to the left of that, the front door, and to the left of that, what appears to be a living room picture window. It is bright daylight. The camera appears to be approximately 25 feet from the front door of the home.

The officers making a sort of entry can generally be seen only from the back and the camera is somewhat shaky throughout the clip. Brief glimpses of the faces of a few of the officers are possible, but it is very difficult, perhaps impossible to identify them. Keep in mind that the time frames are based on the time stamp running with the video, so I may be off by fractions of a second here and there.

THE VIDEO:

Seconds 0-8: The clip begins with the camera focusing on an officer in tactical gear and helmet in the front seat of a police vehicle. The field of view shifts around, finally settling, shakily, on a consistent view of the front of the home and of the approximately seven officers in tactical uniforms and gear in the front yard, driveway and near the front door. An officer with a bullet-resistant shield is consistently standing, more or less, in front of the door.

5: The police vehicle siren begins.

7: It stops for about a half second and begins again.

14: The siren ceases. The siren sounds very much like a car alarm, and is not very loud, even within the vehicle that is apparently broadcasting the sound. It has sounded, with a brief interruption, for only about nine seconds.

15: An officer can be heard saying “do it.”

17: An officer says “bang, bang, bang,” apparently over the radio. It’s not clear what he means or why he is saying this.

26: An officer holding a large, purpose-built pry bar, approaches the door and knocks lightly several times. He immediately retreats backward toward the garage.

33: An officer advances and apparently kicks the door open (officers standing in the way obscure the action, but the pry bar is apparently not used). That officer withdraws to the area of the garage. Officers immediately start moving around, but in no organized fashion. There is no stack, and no one seems to have any idea what to do. There is no organized attempt at a dynamic entry.

38: At this point, it appears that another officer actually enters the home to the right of the officer holding the shield. It is difficult to be sure, because various officers shift directly in and out of the view of the camera, which does not change. The shield-holding officer stands in the doorway, but does not enter. Another officer is standing to the left of the officer with the shield. He too does not enter, but only points his weapon into the home through the doorway. Again, officers are apparently speaking, but I cannot make out what they are saying.

40: Shots start, and are apparently a combination of semi-automatic and automatic fire. No muzzle flashes are visible and it is impossible to tell exactly who is firing. In addition, their specific weapons are not visible. Two officers immediately retreat out of the frame of the camera, to the right, in front of the garage. This leaves the officer who is apparently inside the house, the officer holding the shield who is blocking the doorway and the officer leaning over his left shoulder, at the left side of the doorway, leaning in, apparently firing. It appears that the officer with the shield is armed only with a handgun (normal procedure when carrying a shield) while the others are armed with long guns of various types. I can make out the distinct reports of at least three weapons.

Almost immediately, an officer in the background, who was closer to the camera, has slung his long gun behind his back. He draws his handgun, and runs to the front door.

44: Positioning himself between the officer holding the shield and the officer on the left, he sticks his handgun between them, apparently one-handed, and begins to fire. By this time, the officer holding the shield can be clearly seen to be on his back on the ground in the doorway. His shield is now oriented so that it is between him and the camera.

48: The shooting stops. The officers seem disoriented, not knowing what to do. There are no apparent attempts to reload. Only the three who remained outside are visible. The officer who apparently entered, ahead of the shield man, is not visible.

50: One final round is fired. It’s not possible to tell who fires it or why. The camera quickly shifts downward, away from the scene of the shooting, and the video stops at 54 seconds.

OBSERVATIONS:

(1) There appears to be no organization at all. The officers are not organized into an entry stack, they are not apparently taking pre-determined positions, and they mill about, apparently not knowing what should happen next.

(2) They are apparently announcing themselves, but their words are muted. It would be entirely possible for people in the home to be unable to hear what they are saying.

(3) The activation of the siren appears to be uncoordinated with the action at the door. I cannot hear any radio traffic asking for such activation, and there are no visual signals requesting it. If the residents heard it at all, it could be easily mistaken for a car alarm.

(4) Music, apparently playing in the police vehicle, is a very disturbing sign. It indicates a lack of training and concentration that would be potentially deadly in any SWAT operation. This is an amazing bit of foolishness. It is hard enough to clearly hear radio traffic and voices in fast moving, stressful situations. Adding extraneous music is incredibly stupid and dangerous.

(5) Whoever knocks does so very quietly and makes only 4-5 knocks. It’s not possible to tell whether the home has a doorbell, but from the knock to the kick that opens the door only about seven seconds elapse, not nearly enough time for any resident to answer the knock even if they did hear it.

The evidence currently suggests that Vanessa Guerena, Jose’s wife, spotted armed men roaming about the yard. Telling Jose, he directed her to hide in a closet with their four year old child, and taking up an AR-15, crouched in a hallway to intercept what he likely thought were armed home invaders. The exact time frame of these actions is currently unknown.

That the officers take the time to knock and sound a siren indicates that they did not consider time to be of the essence. They were apparently not concerned that the residents of the home would be armed and waiting for them, or that they might be trying to dispose of evidence. Had this been the case, they would have obtained a no-knock warrant and entered without warning, maximizing shock and surprise and minimizing the danger. As it is, their actions indicate a poor state of planning and readiness, haphazardly combining elements of a low-risk warrant service-albeit with a fully armed SWAT team, which makes no sense—and a high-risk, no-knock entry, for which a SWAT team makes sense.

(6) When the door is kicked open, the officer who apparently opened the door has to hastily retreat through several other officers, indicating very poor planning. In proper dynamic entries, the breaching officer or officers are positioned so that they can immediately swing out of the way without obstructing others, allowing the stack to immediately enter. Here, no one moves toward the door in a coordinated manner.

(7) After the door swings open, it takes about five seconds for an officer to apparently enter the door on the right, the shield man to stand in the doorway, blocking it, and the officer on the left of the door to lean in and point his weapon into the home.

(8) An important consideration here is that the officers were standing in bright sunlight. Upon entering, or looking into the home, unless they took appropriate steps to compensate, their vision would be compromised. Anyone who has been outside in bright sunlight and stepped into a building without lights on understands what I’m talking about. It is likely that when they saw Guerena, and the specifics of that encounter are far from clear, they saw only a dark and/or indistinct outline. It is impossible to see if the officers are wearing goggles or dark glasses, which would allow them to see clearly in a darkened dwelling upon entry, but there is no apparent sign of them adjusting such eyewear off their eyes as they stand in the doorway. It is entirely possible that those who fired had no real idea why they were firing because they could not clearly see the “threat” that was drawing their fire.

(9) The shooting begins with 4-5 evenly spaced shots, apparently on semi-automatic. Those shots are quickly joined by a wild melee of fire which lasts about eight seconds, followed by a two second silence and one final shot. According to media accounts, the SWAT team “leader” said that the officers involved exhausted their ammunition. That’s not at all hard to believe, and it is possible that more than 71 rounds were fired.

What is absolutely clear is that the firing was not professionally done. Professional operators fire in two-three rounds bursts, take the milliseconds necessary to asses whether their fire has had the desired effect, and fire again, in a carefully controlled, highly accurate manner, only if necessary. What I heard on the video was panicky fire. Two officers heard the first firing, and they simply opened up and held their triggers down, or kept pulling the trigger, until their bolts locked back, their magazines having been emptied. No doubt their trigger fingers were still jerking even then.

Considering the nature and volume of fire, it is amazing that Guerena was hit some 60 times. It is also amazing that the entire neighborhood was not ventilated. Apparently at least one round did strike a neighboring home—which indicates that the police recognized the reckless manner of their fusillade sufficiently to check out the surrounding area—which caused to police to break into that home to ensure they hadn’t killed anyone. Apparently, they were lucky and did not. It is equally amazing that they did not shoot each other.

UPDATE 052911, 1329 CT: According to a more recent local news story, the medical examiner has reported that Guerena was hit not 60 times as originally suggested by doctors, but only 22 times. This is far more in line with common results of police shootings where most rounds fired do not hit their intended targets. This is also far more in line with what would be expected of the wild and uncontrolled fire of the SWAT shooters in this particular incident, particularly those firing on full-auto. Highly skilled operators can control fully automatic fire in a submachine gun or light carbine such as the AR-15, untrained operators cannot. In any case, carefully controlled and aimed short bursts are always preferred. Police officers are directly responsible for each and every bullet they fire. In this case, nearly 70% of the rounds fired by the police missed. This might make more likely my contention that the officer's vision was compromised and that at least some of them had no real idea of their target or why they were shooting at it, other than the knowledge that one of their number was initially shooting at something. As shocking as all of this might be, the hit rate is about average for police shootings. SWAT teams should do much better. Knowing this, it is even more incredible that the officers did not shoot Mrs. Guerena, her child, themselves, or anyone else in the neighborhood.

(10) That the shield man never actually entered the home, but merely stood in the doorway, perfectly silhouetted, in the very center of a textbook fatal funnel speaks very poorly of the team’s training and experience. It’s not clear how he ended up on his back in that doorway. Did he trip and fall? Perhaps he was knocked off his feet by his teammates, eager to get in on the action. It is also possible that the fourth officer who hastily ran up to the door and thrust his handgun between two of his fellow officers may have fired it so closely to the head and face of the shield man that he was momentarily stunned--or injured--and knocked off his feet. Other officers block the view of the camera, so it is not, from the video alone, possible to know what happened.

(11) Perhaps the most egregious and telling indicator of little or no training, planning, experience and ability is the officer who runs to the doorway, thrusts his handgun between two fellow officers, likely shooting very close to their ears and eyes, to fire off some “me too” rounds. It is highly unlikely that this officer could have had any idea of his target, if he saw one at all. To be completely fair, he was probably acting as police officers do, tending toward action rather than inaction, but proper SWAT training teaches only appropriate, effective action. There is absolutely no room for “me too” shooting, on the street or during SWAT operations.

(12) It is not, of course, possible to know what the officers did prior to the video, but they had obviously been there for at least a short time before the videotaping began.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

The information available through media accounts does not present clear probable cause for a search of Guerena’s home. One media account noted:

“The reports state Jose Guerena; his brother, Alejandro; and Jose Celaya were named as suspects in briefings given to officers before the search warrants were served. Many of the officers' reports refer to the sheriff's long-term drug investigation as the reason for the search warrants.

Reports show about $100,000 in cash, marijuana and firearms were seized that morning from the four homes that were searched.

Items found in Jose Guerena's house included: a Colt .38-caliber handgun, paperwork, tax returns, insurance papers, bank statements and a bank card, reports showed.

Another report said detectives found body armor in a hallway closet and a U.S. Border Patrol hat in the garage.”

Notice that there is no information to indicate that any drugs or money were found in Guerena’s home, or that Guerena or his home, were in any way directly related to criminal activity. In fact, the police have, to date, not released the search warrant affidavit, warrant and return for Guerena’s home. However, there is no evidence to indicate that they found anything at all illegal in Guerena’s home. If they had, considering the public and Internet attention this case is generating, they surely would have made it public. Any drug case they were working has long been blown. Secrecy is no longer an issue.

None of the items listed as having been found in Guerena’s home are illegal, or indeed, unusual, particularly for a former Marine who had served two combat tours. One reason that the warrant information has not been released is likely that it was non-specific. In other words, the grounds for searching Guerena’s home may have been shaky at best.

Another media reports notes:

“According to a report, a detective interviewing Jose Guerena's younger brother, Jesus Gerardo Guerena, asked him about the slayings of Manuel and Cynthia Orozco. Jesus Guerena said he knew the couple because they were related to his brother Alejandro's wife.

According to Star archives, Manuel and Cynthia Orozco were killed during a home invasion in March 2010.”

This seems to indicate the police straining to find justification for SWAT involvement in the search, to say nothing of justifying the search itself. Guerena’s younger brother knew two people killed in a 2010 home invasion because they were related to his brother’s wife? Hopefully this is not the extent of the police’s justification for the search, or of Guerena’s being “linked to a double homicide.”

Very disturbing is the fact that the police did not allow Guerena medical help for about an hour and a quarter. In fact, they may not have entered the home after their fusillade of fire, instead withdrawing and eventually sending in a robot to poke and prod Guerena to make sure he was dead. That the SWAT team apparently did not immediately follow up their fire and completely clear the home is further, damning evidence of unbelievably poor leadership and execution. For those who have experience in such matters, the apparent behavior of the police is simply mind-boggling.

What is also unknown is how the police handled the aftermath of the shooting. Officer involved shootings are probably the most demanding situations officers face. The need for absolute perfection in the handling and collection of evidence, the interviewing of witnesses and involved officers, even the precise accounting for each round fired and its final resting place—a nightmare in this case—is of the utmost importance. The slightest deviation from proper procedure can indicate incompetence, cover-up or both.

As you read further accounts of this situation keep in mind that the actions of the police must be judged only on what they knew, or reasonably should have known, when they arrived to serve the warrant that morning. Post-shooting attempts to paint Guerena as the worlds most dangerous drug dealer and homicidal maniac (who, faced with four armed men he likely recognized as police did not take his weapon off safe) mean nothing at all, other than that the police are furiously spinning to justify what may turn out to be unjustifiable.

I don’t have all the facts. No one does. But based on the video, and what is currently known, it is very hard indeed to see how the police acted with anything less than amazing incompetence, incompetence that cost the life of a former Marine, a man who was apparently a solid citizen working hard in a copper mine to provide for his young family.

Update Be sure to read Part 2 of this analysis.

Bloggers Are Good People

Met up with a bunch of folks participating in the Lucky Gunner Blogger Shoot last night, and quickly fell in with John Donovan of Argghhh! and Dustin of LuckyGunner.com and had a nice conversation with them, and briefly met some of a substantial group of bloggers.

I'm going to refer you to Bob's Gun Counter for blog coverage of the rest of the event, and will post live updates to Twitter as I can.

Be Jealous, Kids. Very. Jealous.

I'm relaxing at the hotel in Lenoir City, TN right now.

Why should that make you jealous? I'm here for the LuckyGunner Blogger Shoot. Cool people. Cool firearms. Unconfirmed rumors of armor. And a minivan that is about to get a close and personal feeling of the power of civil war-era cannon.

The meet-and-greet is in a few hours, and we get down to blowing holes in things tomorrow and Sunday. I'll post video and write-ups as possible.

Socialistic Energy-Lite

Those troublemakers at the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform are up to their usual tricks and have produced a outrageously scandalous report calling into question the motives of The One. It is available here. But first, a bit of background.

Communists, and their less murderous, Communist-lite comrades, Socialists, are masters of deception and propaganda. So adept are they that they long ago coined a term to describe the simpletons who believe their propaganda and are thereby motivated to betray and harm their own countries: “useful idiots.” The American left has always provided a ready supply of useful idiots who are praised by the elite to their faces, but reviled behind their backs, for Marxists love only true believers.

A part of this contempt for all but their own kind is apparent in their frequent rhetorical affection for “the people.” In reality “the people” are merely an abstraction, the non-existent body of subjects whose support for and love of their betters and rulers is unquestionable. Such caring for “the people” is ephemeral, particularly when it is applied to individuals, about whom Marxists care not at all, particularly if those individuals fail to demonstrate the proper respect and appreciation for the accomplishments of the glorious revolution and the elite who lead it.

The Obama administration often speaks of the wonderful, virtually unimaginable benefits of its policies for “the people.” Mr. Obama has even scolded the public when it has shown insufficient appreciation for his munificence stuffily sniffing that the public should be thanking him instead. Nowhere is Mr. Obama’s Marxist faux-fealty to “the people” more evident than in his energy non-policies.

Actually, it may be unfair to say that what, to any rational member of “the people,” would seem to be a complete lack of a coherent policy is in fact no policy. Mr. Obama’s policy is actually quite clear, and he and his various czars and functionaries have often and openly talked about it. From Mr. Obama’s campaign promise to make energy prices “necessarily skyrocket,” to his observation that the rest of the world won’t allow Americans to drive SUVs and set their thermostats for comfort, to his vow to bankrupt the American coal industry to Dr. Chu’s explanation of the necessity to make American gasoline prices rise to European levels of $10 per gallon or more, it’s obvious that he truly intends to bankrupt Americans, making it impossible for them to drive, heat or cool their homes, and destroy the American economy, all in the name of helping “the people,” of course.

What’s that you say? How can policies that harm every individual who constitutes “the people” help “the people?” They can’t, but anyone who recognizes that obviously isn’t one of the docile, easily controlled subjects so beloved of Marxists, but a counter-revolutionary unwilling to sacrifice for the good of “the people.” Remember, please, that the scientific Marxists, the elite, must never stoop to living under the same strictures imposed on “the people.” There must be some rewards for ceaselessly laboring on behalf of “the people,” or who would wish to become one of the elite? What’s that? The elite appoint themselves and suck the lifeblood of the people? They always have? So what’s your point?

Finally, even the Congress, including the occasional Democrat, is awakening to the reality that Mr. Obama actually intends to bankrupt the nation and “the people.” The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s report explicitly reveals that the Obama Administration’s energy policies are responsible for higher oil and gas prices because the Administration wants higher oil and gas prices. Who woulda’ thunk it? I’ve often written about Mr. Obama’s stealth agenda, an agenda that deceptively pushes action on many fronts:

(1) Public persuasion. This is the first, public front in which Mr. Obama has tried to use the bully pulpit of the Presidency to convince “the people” that their ruin is actually their salvation. As Mr. Obama’s default position is to speechify in the apparent belief that everyone in the world wants nothing so much as yet another Obama teleprompter reading, this suits him well. This first step is always closely aligned with:

(2) Legislation. When Democrats controlled the Congress, Mr. Obama was able to push through ObamaCare despite the fact that a clear majority of the public did not, and does not, want it. However, even with control of Congress, he was not able to pass Cap and Trade, which would have given him absolute control over the daily lives of “the people,” enabling Obama bureaucrats to regulate the very air they breath. When legislation fails, there is always:

(3) The Administrative State. Where the first several steps fail, Mr. Obama makes an end run around the legislature by means of his appointed, unaccountable czars and innumerable bureaucratic functionaries, constantly growing in number and boldness, who not only have the power to make up the rules as they go, but to harass, obstruct, punish and harm anyone who might try to stand in their way. Bureaucrats can, on their own initiative, bring economic development and activity to a halt. By ensuring that only like-minded sycophants are in bureaucratic positions, Mr. Obama need not stoop to issuing specific instructions: they know what to do. Freedom Of Information requests? Hahahahahahaha! You must be a Republican! In the unlikely event that this cannot bring about the required results, there are:

(4) Environmentalists and Similar Groups. Whatever can’t be obtained through the first three steps can be obtained—and opponents impeded and punished—through the efforts of environmentalists and other advocacy groups, who commonly use:

(5) The Imperial Courts. By appointing the “right” kind of judges and/or jurisdiction shopping, predictable rulings are easy to obtain. Whatever mischief bureaucrats aren’t able to secure can often be accomplished through liberal, activist judges. The best part is that their decisions are the law!

But that’s immoral! Underhanded! Un-American! Right. What’s your point? Marxists recognize no outcome but victory by any means necessary, legal or illegal. They will do whatever is necessary to win, and minor, irrelevant impediments like the law, the Constitution or the welfare of individual subjects do not trouble them at all.

This, gentle readers, is what has been happening for the first two years of the Obama Administration. Should he win a second term, even if Republicans control the Congress, expect no restraints whatever in the use of steps 3-5. It, after all, is for the good of “the people.” Individuals need not apply.

Quick Takes, May 26, 2011

ITEM: Is This Cool or What? Department: From the Wall Street Journal (here) comes the story of a man mostly paralyzed from the waist down, who, with an electrostimulation device implanted along the spine, and intensive therapy, is now able to stand and has substantially improved feeling and muscular response in his lower body. It’s not a complete cure, but it’s amazing progress that offers hope for many others. Only in America--for now.

ITEM: Well, those merry leftists in San Francisco are up to it again! They’ve approved a new ballot initiative for the next election on an issue of overwhelming public concern and importance: A ban on circumcision for infants. No, this is not a parody; they actually mean it. The group backing the measure calls if the “San Francisco Male Genital Mutilation Bill.” May I suggest an alternate title: “The San Francisco Rationality Obliteration and Lunatic Nanny State Intrusion Bill.” San Francisco’s Jewish community is not amused and would like to cut those proposing the bill off short. Sorry. Couldn’t help myself. Go here for the truncated story. Sorry. Couldn’t help myself. No need to get snippish! Sorry…I’ve got to cut that out! Sorry...

ITEM: But He’s Not Really That Bad Of An Utterly Depraved, Murderous, Genocidal Terrorist! Department. From the good folks at Hot Air (here) we learn that the Holder Justice Department is apparently showing signs of prosecuting another terrorist—one Ali Musa Daqduq—in civilian courts, so much so that five Senators including Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) have sent Holder a letter demanding answers and demanding that he be prosecuted at Gitmo under a military commission. The Senators observe that he trained Iraqis in the use of IEDS and executed five US soldiers in Iraq. Holder supporters have their usual, inane ideas. Read the whole thing.

ITEM: So, they’re poisonous, if they break require an EPA Superfund cleanup, cause cancer, cost too much and explode in flames too? I’ll take 100! I speak, of course, about Compact Florescent Light bulbs, or CFLs, the magic green technology our Congressional masters have decided must replace cheap, safe incandescent light bulbs. Visit the American Thinker (here) for the story about just how dangerous these greenie wonders actually are. If you’re not aware of the very real dangers of CFLs, this article will certainly be an eye-opener.

ITEM: What to make of Mr. Obama’s bizarre anti-Israel speech of the past week, and his rapid backpedaling at the AIPAC conference (and thereafter) where he claimed to have been misquoted and declared himself a firm and unshakeable defender of Israel? It’s pretty simple, really.

The problem--for Mr. Obama--is that he was accurately quoted. Mr. Obama’s default position is to attack America and her allies and to fawn over and kowtow to her enemies. When political reality dictates that he do something about some foreign crisis, he gives a teleprompter reading and maybe threatens sanctions. And when they don’t work and the despot of the week hacks another spitwad into America’s eye, he threatens even more meaningful sanctions and gives another TP reading.

Mr. Obama is no friend of Israel, and the Israelis, made practical by facing obliteration on a daily basis, know it. However, Mr. Obama wants the campaign donations and votes of American Jews, who, considering they are Jewish, have remarkably short memories. His problem, and America’s, is that he doesn’t like America and doesn’t represent American’s interests, only what he perceives his interests to be at a given moment. His rhetoric is among the cheapest substances on the planet, action in support of American interests and those of our allies, rare.

Oh yes, he’s no fonder of Israel or American Jews either, but he does like their money and votes enough to pretend to like and support them.

Go here to read Scott Hinderaker’s take on the sordid mess at Powerline.

ITEM: Speaking Of Libya...: So what’s going on over there anyway? Has Libya dropped off the planet? Mr. Obama didn’t spend any real time on Libya during his second world-changing, historic, make-the-Muslims-like-him speech, and we’re more or less at war with Libya, or at least engaged in a kinetic military action, or whatever the latest Obamite euphemism for war is at the moment. So what’s going on? Go here for an article by Nick Gillespie at Reason that fills in at least a few of the many blanks.

ITEM: Go here for an interesting article about a Pima County Sheriff’s SWAT team shooting a former Marine, who served two tours in the War on Terror, 60 times (out of 71 rounds fired) during a drug raid on his home that turned up not so much as a marijuana seed. Among the features was the claim that the Marine shot first, later retracted by the police. Oh yes, they also kept paramedics waiting for more than an hour until the former Marine was dead.

If there is a genuine, imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death, officers may shoot as many times as necessary to end the threat, but 71 rounds, inside a house, apparently in a hallway, at very close range? This sounds like two or three cops with automatic weapons engaging in panicky “me too” shooting and more or less emptying their magazines. It’s amazing anyone in the neighborhood survived. The Marine’s wife and two small children were hiding in a closet, at the Marine's insistence, during the artillery barrage. This one, at least on the surface, seems very, very smelly.

Be sure to read Bob’s article on the shooting at Pajamas Media (here) too.

ITEM: How Dare Those Provincial Americans Arrest An Important Frenchman! Yeah, well, get over it. Mark Steyn (here) wittily--as always--sizes up the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn for the alleged rape of a maid at the Sofitel Hotel in Manhattan.

ITEM. So. Unless we’re actually dead--or at least in some sort of post-life state--and experiencing a group delusion of living, the world did not, in fact, end as predicted over the weekend. Freedom of religion, gentle readers, is a wonderful, though sometimes bizarre, thing, isn’t it. Discuss.

UPDATE: Ooops! May 21 wasn’t actually Judgment Day, according to doomsday minister Harold Camping, but was instead a sort of “spiritual judgment day.” The real end of times will be October 21, so there is still time to rent those videos you’ve always been wanting to see, wash the dog, finish your pushups, and perhaps even paint the chicken coop. Go here for the spiritual lowdown.

ITEM: They Did WHAT?! Department: Go here to Fox News for a GAO report that reveals that at least 3700 government contractors and nonprofits received more than $24 billion (billion with a “B”) from the Obama stimulus. You remember the whole “spending equals stimulus” thing? C’mon, you remember! The nearly trillion dollar spending spree during Mr. Obama’s first year in office that turned the economy around? Summer of Recovery? Happy days are here again? Yeah. Neither do I. But that’s not the best part, not at all! The best part is that those 3700 lucky and much enriched entities simultaneously owned 757 million in back taxes! If I cheat on my taxes, can I get more than I owe for free from the government too? By all means, read the whole thing, but take your blood pressure meds first.

ITEM: It is becoming apparent that British newshounds are often writing far more insightful analyses of American politics and politicians than their American brethren and sisteren (OK, OK, I know that’s not a proper word. Can’t an author have a little fun with the language? I mean, if Shakespeare could make up words, why can’t I? Sheesh!). Such is the case with a fine article by Gary Younge at the Guardian (here). Younge coins a new term--Obamaphilia--to illustrate the drooling fealty of some Euro-weenies to Mr. Obama. I dunno. Sounds like a particularly nasty and debilitating disease that shouldn't be mentioned in polite company to me:

Doctor: I think you’d better sit down Mr. Snerdly.

Snerdly: Sit down? What it is?

Doctor: That’s where you plant your posterior in a chair, but that’s not important now. I’m afraid you have...Obamaphilia!

Snerdly: Oh no! Obamaphilia? Not Obamaphilia!

Doctor: I’m afraid so Mr. Snerdly, and it’s stage three...

Snerdly: Stage three? Stage three?! What can I do?

Doctor: Avoid even the mention of the name “Barack Obama”...uh-oh...

Snerdly: (Begins drooling uncontrollably and falls into a rapturous coma, mutters as he sinks to the floor) MM--MM—MM, Barack Hussein O-ba…

Doctor: Nurse! Code blue! Bring me adrenaline and a bucket and mop!

ITEM: Remember when Bill Clinton, post-presidency, went on the lecture circuit, sucking up money like a Dyson vacuum sucks dust bunnies? Remember how the media went berserk, accusing him of hypocrisy and greed? Yeah. I don’t remember that either. So why is the Lamestream Media now going after George W. Bush for speech making, accusing him of being a hypocrite for claiming to keep a low profile even while admitting that his speeches are behind closed doors and not open to the general public or press? Isn’t that keeping a low profile? Can you say “liberal bias” children? I knew that you could! Visit Rob at PacNRighty (here) for the story and commentary.

ITEM: So, How’s That Socialism Workin’ Out For Ya? Spain’s nearly decade-long experiment in socialism continues to be a disaster in every possible way. Its green jobs program killed at least two jobs for every job it created, and now, the bill for socialistic excess is coming due. Read Michelle Malkin (here) for the cautionary tale. Of course our own socialists in the White House won’t learn anything from it. Socialists always believe that they alone can perfect socialism where everyone else has failed. Margaret Thatcher was right: “The trouble with Socialism is that you always run out of other people’s money.”

ITEM: For those who aren’t familiar with the Jerusalem Post’s Caroline Glick, let this article (here) be your introduction. For insightful analysis into what’s actually happening in the Middle East and in America’s relationship to Israel, there is none better.

ITEM: Let’s see: the law requires that Congress produce an annual budget, but the Dems haven’t done one in 755 days…no problem!
“There’s no need to have a Democratic budget, in my opinion. It would be foolish for us to do a budget at this stage,” said Senate Majority leader, Harry Reid (D-Nevada). But of course! Why reveal the depth of your economic depravity? Go here for the entire story. Be sure you’re sitting down as you read it. Secure all breakable items within easy reach. Ear muffs for the kids. Probably wouldn’t hurt to put them on the dog too.

ITEM: Louis Renault Award of the Week: The Louis Renault Award, mass shooter division, goes to Gerald Loughner, the vermin who shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others in Tucson on January 8 killing six. I was shocked, shocked! to learn from Fox News (here) that Loughner was found mentally incompetent to stand trial. It is entirely possible that Loughner will never face justice for his alleged crime. It is also entirely possible that he could, eventually, be released. Words fail…

ITEM: Michael Barone is one of America’s premier political analysts, and by this, I don’t mean he’s a network talking head. When Barone speaks, it’s always wise to listen carefully. Go here to read Barone’s latest article on how the Obama Administration has abandoned the rule of law to reward political cronies. While you do, take deep, regular breaths…

ITEM: God Annoy The Queen! Department: Normally, I wouldn’t bother to bring something like this to your attention. After all, everybody makes mistakes. But Mr. Obama’s record of insulting the British in every possible way has, as they say in court, opened the door. Go here to see how Mr. Obama blew a toast to the Queen and didn't have the good sense to just shut up until it was the proper time. Think this sounds petty? Presidents of the United States have protocol people to ensure that this sort of thing doesn’t happen. Does Mr. Obama simply not listen to them, or has he dismissed them all, considering his intellect to be incompatible with advice from lower beings? Remember gentle readers, he’s ostensibly representing you, except he really doesn’t represent America, does he? Discuss.

ITEM: The women who is to be the head of Mr. Obama’s newly conceived (deceived?) Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (she’s a current White House Advisor), Elizabeth Warren, appeared before a House hearing recently, and demonstrated her Obama-like temperament and abiding respect for the co-equal branch of the government by demanding that the Committee before which she was appearing limit her appearance to only one hour. According to Ms. Warren, she had important meetings to attend. Well, of course! I mean, if she had meetings, why, that’s much more important that answering questions from the Congress of the United States. Go here for the story. Hope. Change. Lunatic self—importance and delusion.

ITEM: Good News/Bad News Department: From Fox (here) comes the news that researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have found seventeen previously unknown pyramids and thousands of tombs and settlements in Egypt using space-based infrared scanning. The bad news? When the Muslim Brotherhood takes over, any involvement with infidels and Egypt’s pre-Muslim history may vanish, and if the experience of Afghanistan is any indicator, even the destruction of Egypt’s most famous monuments is a possibility.

ITEM: On Shelter Island, Long Island, NY a funeral took place for US Army 1st Lt. Joseph Theinert, killed in Afghanistan. The American Legion raised $8000 to line the funeral route with American flags. So far so good. Where things went wrong---you knew that was coming, didn’t you?—was when someone from the state utility, the Long Island Power Authority, saw a newspaper article about the funeral and realized that the flags were flown from utility poles and that a state law allowed them to charge $5.00 per pole for the privilege of flying the flag. A bill quickly followed. Shelter Island Councilman Peter Reich said “Getting that money out of us is going to be like getting blood out of a stone.” Good for them. What’s wrong with those people? Go here for the story.

ITEM: Louis Renault Award, Little Watched Broadcast Division: I was shocked, shocked! to learn though Hot Air (here) that Ed Schultz of MSNBC, on the air, called popular conservative radio host and pundit Laura Ingraham a “slut.” Schultz has apparently agreed to a one week unpaid suspension. First class temperament and decorum, these Leftists. In truth, that’s what I found really shocking, that MSNBC would pretend to have broadcast standards. The brilliant and classy Laura Ingraham had the last, best, shot, however:

“I was surprised to learn that Ed Schultz actually hosted a radio show. Is it only available online?”

And on that deliciously witty bit of accurate return fire, I must bid you all a fond farewell for this week, and look forward to seeing you again next Thursday!

Smith & Wesson SD40 Home Defense Kit Review

I wrote one.

Seventy-One Shots: The Death of Jose Guereña

A hard-working Marine veteran of Iraq was gunned down in his own home by a Pima County AZ SWAT team that originally claimed he fired and hit their men during a no-knock raid. Evidence shows, however, the combat veteran never too his safety off, and family members want to know why the cops kept an ambulance crew from the victim for more than an hour.

Another case of murder with a badge? Decide for yourself after reading my latest article at Pajamas Media.

Update: Jonn Lilyea of This Ain't Hell has been on this story from the beginning, and notes via email that this wasn't even a legitimate SWAT team, but instead a gaggle of officers "cobbled together from four LE agencies."

This was gross incompetence leading to the shooting of a good man, followed by the purposeful obstruction of potentially live-saving medical care, and an obvious cover-up and smear campaign in the process of going south.

I'm not ready to charge the officers in this shooting with murder, but they are at the very least candidates for some sort of variant of a "manslaughter with depraved indifference" charge that should lead to the end of their law enforcement careers.

A distinguished veteran died at the hands of overzealous cops who insist on smearing his reputation after gunning him down. This should never happen, much less become so commonplace.

Leadership and Statesmanship

In the last few days Americans were given the opportunity to observe, firsthand, the extremes of leadership and statesmanship. Even the American Congress, as dysfunctional as it often is, responded to the obvious difference. It is a lesson we should take to heart.

Tiny, democratic Israel is a nation in the middle of the world’s roughest neighborhood. Since its birth, its Arab neighbors have repeatedly tried to wipe it, and its people, from the face of the planet, and on several occasions, they came disturbingly close. Since their last bloody failure, they’ve never renounced their genocidal dreams and have instead resorted to terrorism, costing thousands of lives.

The Palestinians have rewarded Israeli offers of peace and generous gifts of land and infrastructure only with renewed terrorism and barrages of rockets. Their founding documents cry for genocide. They raise their children to hate and kill and die. They send women and the mentally disabled to attack the innocent as suicide bombers, and honor mass murderers as national heroes. Even their children’s TV shows preach hatred and murder. At the news of 9-11, they danced in the streets for joy.

Even so, the Israelis, each and every day, provide the Palestinians with food and water, and their hospitals save the lives of those who sometimes try to return laden with explosives, determined to kill those who selflessly saved their lives. They hide weapons and house terrorists near and in schools and hospitals, and use women and children as human shields. When the Israelis fight back to stop terrorist and rocket attacks, their military operates under the kind of restraints that place their soldiers at risk, just as our military does.

Syria and Iran sponsor terrorists with arms, money and training, and actively seek nuclear weapons, weapons they will surely use. Iran makes no pretense about its genocidal intentions and routinely declares its hatred for and hostile intentions toward America with fervor and venom second only to that it reserves for Israel. Both have helped Hezbollah stockpile huge numbers of rockets and other weapons in Southern Lebanon, a nation they’ve ruined and brutalized over many years in their insane, anti-Semitic hatred.

The North Koreans have been actively helping Iran and Syria in their nuclear and missile programs. Turkey is becoming much less secular and more actively Islamist, and is overtly backing away from any friendly relationship with Israel.

Egypt is now on the verge of a Muslim Brotherhood takeover. The Muslim Brotherhood is the foundation of the modern Islamist movement. They will surely abrogate the long-standing peace treaty with Israel, greatly increasing the danger of a catastrophic war in the region.

Against this backdrop, against this undeniable state of affairs and the danger it presents not only to Israel, but to the peace and stability of the world, Barack Obama sees only moral equivalency. His teleprompter generated rhetoric indicates clearly that he sees Israel as the foundational regional problem and that he simplistically believes that if only Israel makes whatever concessions the Palestinians wish, peace will be realized and all of the blood-soaked grievances that have washed over that part of the world for millennia will be healed. He is incapable of understanding that it is not possible to make peace with a people who not only live to kill you, who not only raise their children to kill you, but who never fail to take every opportunity to declare their genocidal intentions. With all of this, and more, incontrovertible evidence available to him, Mr. Obama demands that Israel carve up the nation so as to ensure its doom.

On May 24, speaking before the Congress, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu demonstrated real statesmanship. Instead of tailoring his rhetoric to meet the political needs of the moment, he spoke from unshakeable moral conviction, and even the jaded denizens of Congress recognized the genuine article when they saw it. Mr. Netanyahu was unfailingly gracious to Mr. Obama, the man who has often insulted and tried to humiliate Mr. Netanyahu. He demonstrated, naturally and with grace, the kind of strength, conviction, moral fiber and class that Mr. Obama so often lacks. Mr. Obama fails in foreign affairs because he reflexively sympathizes with our enemies and disparages our friends. In this and in much more, he does not truly represent the interests of the United States. The same certainly cannot be said about Mr. Netanyahu. Israel is the better for it; America is not.

Perhaps the best way to sum up the reality of the Middle East, a reality that Mr. Obama refuses to acknowledge, or is perhaps unable to recognize is to understand that if Israel’s many enemies gave up their genocidal hopes and lay down their weapons, there would be peace. If Israel lay down her weapons, there would be genocide.

In pursuing such a stubborn, arrogant, petulant posture toward our vital regional ally, the only established democracy in the region, a people and nation to whom civilization owes a great debt, Mr. Obama actually makes war far more likely. Weakness never establishes peace, and the enemies of Israel and America have surely seen little but weakness from Mr. Obama. Understanding this, and experiencing Mr. Obama’s most recent teleprompter readings, what Israeli can now reasonably believe that Israel can rely upon America under Mr. Obama?

Mr. Netanyahu said it best: “Israel is not what’s wrong about the Middle East; Israel is what’s right about the Middle East.” That it is virtually impossible to imagine Mr. Obama speaking such a simple truth speaks volumes. Mr. Netanyahu is truly a leader and a statesman. The President of the United States, to our disappointment and peril, is not.

Barack McFly doesn't Know What Year It Is

Scholar-President thinks it is 2008.

Fonda Suggests He's Teaching His Grandkids to Snipe Obama

The man who became a legend for playing a counter-culture biker nicknamed "Captain America" might be getting a visit from the Secret Service for comments made in France some may interpret as an assassination threat:

Peter Fonda, the star of Easy Rider, suggested to Mandrake that he was encouraging his grandchildren to shoot President Barack Obama.

"I'm training my grandchildren to use long-range rifles," said the actor, 71. "For what purpose? Well, I'm not going to say the words 'Barack Obama', but …"

He added, enigmatically: "It's more of a thought process than an actuality, but we are heading for a major conflict between the haves and the have nots. I came here many years ago with a biker movie and we stopped a war. Now, it's about starting the world."

I hope the irony isn't lost on the political left. The actor who helped personify their 1960s counter-cultural movement has now rebelled against it's failures to the point he is encouraging taking up arms against it.

Sadly, there is some merit to Fonda's observation that Obama and his Marxist-Socialist allies are running the Cloward-Piven strategy to perfection. Obama's wrecking of the economy is intentional, as are his machinations to dramatically increase energy prices and roil ties with our traditional allies.

The intent is to isolate America, and make it impossible for Americans to survive without capitalism being overthrown for the Marxist-Socialism fantasy Obama has been mentored to favor his entire useless life.

Fonda should not have mentioned assassinating Obama. That was stupid. Training his grandchildren in the use of arms, however, is a very prudent decision considering the path we are being forced down by would-be authoritarians.

Idiot Obama Sets Out to Create Another War

Barack Obama finally found a Middle Eastern leader he wouldn't bow down to in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He also seems intent on empowering the militant Arabs surrounding Israel with the moral cover to start another war.

...Mr. Obama's problem isn't, as he supposes, that people aren't paying close enough attention to him. On the contrary, they've noticed that on Thursday Mr. Obama called for Israel to make territorial concessions to some approximation of the '67 lines before an agreement is reached on the existential issues of refugees and Jerusalem. "Moving forward now on the basis of territory and security," he said, "provides a foundation to resolve these two issues in a way that is just and fair, and that respects the rights and aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians."

Mr. Obama neglected to mention these points on Sunday, hence the telling omission. But the essence of his proposal is that Israel should cede territory, put itself into a weaker position, and then hope for the best. This doesn't even amount to a land-for-peace formula.

That's not all. Mr. Obama got some applause Sunday by calling for a "non-militarized" Palestinian state. But how does that square with his comment, presumably applicable to a future Palestine, that "every state has a right to self-defense"? Mr. Obama was also cheered for his references to Israel as a "Jewish state." But why then obfuscate on the question of Palestinian refugees, whose political purpose over 63 years has been to destroy Israel as a Jewish state?

Barack the Younger seems intend on creating the conditions for a modern round of Arab-Israeli wars, where it seems his favor lies with the bloodthirsty and genocidal Arabs.

I cannot for the life of me why he continues to stir up trouble for our allies, unless he doesn't consider himself to be on their side. Why, the next thing you know, he'll make statements that encourage the IRA.

Letter From The Teacher #2: The Unintended(?) Consequences of Mandatory, High Stakes Tests

Anytown High School, Any State, USA

To: Mr. & Mrs. Johnson
From: Mr. English Teacher
Re: Answers to Your Questions

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Johnson:

Thanks so much for attending our “Meet The Teacher” night last week. I’m sorry that we had so little time to address your questions, so I’ll do my best to elaborate on the issues we just didn’t have time to properly discuss. Please let me know if I don’t do that to your satisfaction. But before I do, let me give you a few links that you can review if you like:

(1) For an article on the effects of big government on education, go here.

(2) For a paper on the costs of the No Child Left Behind Act, go here.

It’s important to remember, I think, that while teachers catch most of the flack in the media and in the halls of our legislators, they’re actually the wrong targets. Virtually everywhere, teachers have little or no authority to make decisions, to formulate and implement policy or to affect the direction of their districts. They don’t hire, they don’t fire, and they don’t supervise. In some school districts, they have little or no control over the curriculum they “teach.” They don’t control money, build buildings, or make any meaningful decisions that affect much of anything outside the walls of their classrooms. Yet, they’re the people with the targets painted on their backs. I suppose I’m a little sensitive about that…

Now, as to mandatory, high stakes tests, it would probably be worthwhile for me to clarify some of the things we talked about. As I mentioned, the issues to keep in mind with any part of the curriculum are time, cost and effectiveness. In other words, is any given lesson or activity effective? Does it really teach what we think it will teach? Is it worth the time involved? Some lessons may be really worthwhile but take far too much time to be practical. And finally, what’s the cost? In the classroom, that’s not usually a major issue, but when you’re talking about spending on the state or federal levels, costs can get quickly out of hand.

I know that you’re worried about excessive governmental intrusion into, well, into just about everything. I’m worried about it too. I’m always amazed at Conservatives who rail against big government yet embrace just that when it comes to education. Mandatory testing is one of the worst examples of the excesses of big government. You might want to take the link at the beginning of the letter to a good article that outlines the problem. Mandatory testing is a very large foot in the door for big government in education.

You were right: it really is in large part George W. Bush’s fault. He wanted to help Hispanic kids in Texas improve their academic performance, and when he became president, with the best of intentions, he saw a chance to help even more kids all across the nation. As a businessman, he wanted greater “accountability,” but he had to have data, so the way to generate loads of data was mandatory testing. He also probably thought that if everyone had to score well on tests, they’d more or less automatically improve in every way. The only way to ensure that schools and kids took the tests seriously was to impose major consequences for not taking them seriously, so kids who don’t pass the tests don’t graduate from high school and states that don’t buy in lose billions in federal education funds. That doesn’t sound like small government conservatism, does it?

And if you need any additional proof of big government involvement, consider that Mr. Bush worked with former Senator Ted Kennedy to enact the No Child Left Behind Act (in 2001) which federalized education to a previously unimaginable degree. Republicans tend to consider working with Democrats, for what they think to be the public good, to be bi-partisan cooperation. Leftists consider bi-partisanship to be tricking conservatives into giving them exactly what they want. Ted Kennedy must still be smiling--even in the grave--over that one.

Here’s how it works: You stir up the public with shocking news of a dire problem. In this case, the public schools are horrible, none of the kids can read or write or do math, America is behind the rest of the world, etc. Then you propose a reasonable-sounding solution, in this case, mandatory testing. As long as the public is willing to go along with testing, legislators make their usual sausage and toss every other educational boondoggle and policy they’ve ever imagined, but could not pass, into the mix.

As with so many laws made by Congress, much of this one is plainly preposterous. For example, the law requires every schoolchild in America to be reading and doing math on grade level by 2014. As a political sound bite, it’s great, but because it completely ignores human hature, it’s nonsense. It’s simply not possible for every child in America to read or do math on grade level by any date. It’s like writing a law requiring every child in America to be able to dunk a basketball, or run a sub-12 second 100 meters by a date certain. Many people will simply never be able to do it, no matter how wonderful and well intentioned the law that demands it, yet NCLB demands it anyway, and forces the states to demonstrate and document “Adequate Yearly Progress” (AYP) toward an impossible goal.

All of this, of course, creates enormous and costly local, state and federal educational bureaucracies to make rules, produce and administer the tests and the rest of the related laws, gather, crunch and disseminate the data from the tests, and the process goes on and on as the bureaucracies—as all bureaucracies tend to do—work assiduously to gather even more power and to expand themselves so that it will become impossible to ever reduce their size or power, to say nothing of doing away with them.

How costly? According to the Office Of Management and Budget, in 2006 NCLB imposed 6,680,334 hours of additional administrative paperwork on the states at an estimated cost of at least $141 million dollars. In 2007, Connecticut spent more than 17 million just to comply with NCLB, while Virginia estimated its yearly costs at $20 million. The federal and state education bureaucracies have certainly grown since then. And Texas, for example, has announced that it will spend just under a half billion dollars over the next five years just to purchase its new mandatory tests. My wife and I spend around $2000 per year, of our money, to buy supplies and equipment for our classrooms. We’re far from the only teachers who do that. I have a suggestion or two about where those millions might be better used.

So we start with a huge federal education bureaucracy that is substantially enlarged by NCLB. The Feds issue new rules and requirements, and the paperwork burden alone requires the state education bureaucracies to become larger to comply. But because failing to meet all the unfunded federal mandates can be very expensive indeed, state educrats don’t want to be surprised by embarrassing test scores, so they often go beyond federal requirements, requiring additional testing that they hope will predict how kids will do on the tests that do count. In this pursuit, many states take advantage of federal intrusions to enact their own legislative sausages, thereby enlarging their state level bureaucracies and imposing mandates of their own on local school districts, requiring them to hire additional personnel merely to keep up with all of the federal and state mandates.

Let’s examine Texas, the state that has an enormous effect on the rest of the nation’s schools. Texas has a large, powerful education bureaucracy that is surely the envy of the educrats of many other states. Schools are scored not only on their mandatory test scores, but on a variety of other factors, including attendance, graduation rates, special education populations and many others. Enormous amounts of data are generated by local districts on a continuous basis, including highly specific data on the relative academic performance—measured by the tests, of course—of specific racial populations. The state hands out rankings, ranging from “Academically Unacceptable” to “Exemplary” each year. What all of this means, for Texas and other states, is a substantial increase in personnel who do virtually nothing but manage the required paperwork, and of course, it greatly increases costs. The livelihoods and careers of educators, from the beginning teacher, to the district superintendent, become inextricably tied up in the production of the right kinds of data in the right amounts, which involves substantially diverting their attention from teaching and learning, which, the last time I checked, is supposed to be the primary purpose of schools.

On the local, school district level, the effects are even more disastrous. Because districts don’t want to be surprised, they often impose “benchmark” tests, which are usually approximations of the mandatory state tests, on a regular basis until the actual state tests, which usually take place toward the end of the year, are done. The most foolish districts tie teacher’s evaluations directly to test scores. The inevitable consequence of all of this is a single-minded focus on teaching to the test.

By “teaching to the test,” I don’t mean the kind of focused instruction all good teachers do on a daily basis. I mean spending huge amounts of time doing nothing but covering the information and tricks—and I do mean tricks—necessary to pass those very specific tests, tests that often have little to do with the real curriculum, the curriculum kids need to truly learn to function in the real world. In some schools, particularly elementary schools, very little apart from test drill is done.

All of this is sadly predictable. What for some are the unfortunately unintended consequences of good intentions, are for others very much intentional and are far more about power and control than benefitting children.

The best teachers usually teach more demanding material on a higher intellectual level and demand a higher level of accomplishment and performance from their students. In very real ways, mandatory, high stakes tests are actually a dumbing down of the curriculum. Yet, if your livelihood, your career depended on the test performance of your students, what would you do?

What’s lost is Shakespeare, Mozart, Einstein, Hemingway, poetry, history, science, and all of the other parts of school that are so vital to helping kids build bigger, better brains. That’s really why we have school, not only to socialize kids and to help them learn to be rational, functioning Americans, but to teach them how to think, not what to think, and not how to pass a set of tests that will not, in any way, be of future value to them, and will not build bigger, better brains in the here and now. I lose about 29% of my school year to test drills. That’s 29% of opportunity for real learning lost, forever lost.

Many of those who support such testing don’t seem to understand the nature of tests or their limitations. In order to make it possible for most students to pass the tests, they must reflect only an average level of difficulty, perhaps even a bit less, so while such folks want everyone to read and write on grade level by a date certain, they’re at least somewhat more practical in actually writing the tests that will determine it. Or perhaps they’re doing that on purpose? After all, if you spend much of a year learning to take a specific test, wouldn’t you expect to do pretty well on that test? And wouldn’t those who write and support such testing think that proves that the test is valid? After all, they have the data to prove it!

Test data can’t tell us which students read well and which don’t. They can’t tell us which student tries hard and which doesn’t. They can’t tell us which teachers teach well, which principals are good managers and leaders, or which schools are truly better than others. They do provide data that indicates, statistically, which schools outscored other schools on one specific day in a given year, but given the complexity of human beings and schools, what does that information really tell us and at what cost? Such scores may be suggestive of some of these things, but why not merely ask your child’s teachers how they’re progressing? Why not ask to see their work? That won't increase your tax burden and limit your rights, and will help to limit the size of overbearing government. That’s what matters to parents, students and teachers, not the relative test scores of neighboring or far distant communities.

But what about bad teachers? What about failing school districts? What about incompetent principals? What about communities who fail to hold their school boards accountable? What about corruption and mismanagement? None of these things can be fixed by tests or accurately diagnosed through testing data, and none of them are an argument for grotesquely expanded government. Only involved, caring people on the local level can solve these problems. Fortunately, the mechanisms to solve these problems exist in every school district in America if only people will care enough to use them. Abdicating your responsibility and authority as a citizen to educrats and tests is a recipe for failure.

I suppose the bottom line is that most tests can be of at least some value, but the situation is out of hand. We spend far, far too much money and devote far too much precious classroom time to these tests, and they cannot tell us what any good teacher can tell us, for only the cost of their salary and materials, after a few weeks of class time with their students. And of course, the big government these tests and all associated with them require is never a good thing. It is always wasteful and unresponsive to the will of the people.

Well, I’ve gone on long enough. Hopefully, I’ve answered your questions; please let me know if I have not. Just one more thought before I go: When legislators or others talk about how horrible the public schools are, I always wonder. Most of them attended public schools, so how were they able to avoid being turned into drooling illiterates, particularly in the days before mandatory, high stakes tests?

Yours,

Mr. English Teacher

PS: I recently received our state test results. Consider what happened to two of my students. One is a very bright, hard working, capable girl, a straight "A" student, and one of the best writers in our school. Academic accomplishment is very important to her. The other, a gregarious but generally lazy boy, who occasionally earns a low "B," but who is always flitting about either side of failing. He's a mediocre writer, mostly because he just doesn't do the necessary practice to do well. Academic accomplishment is not on his "to do" list. She failed the English test and was devastated. He not only passed, but earned highest honors and was delighted that, once again, he successfully gamed the system. This sort of thing happens all the time with mandatory tests, but never with my assignments and tests because they require genuine knowledge, skill and accomplishment.

Why Isn't Lee Booth in Jail Yet? A Theory

One constant theme in the saga of Lee Franklin Booth has been that the BATF is corrupt or incompetent for the way they are handling various allegations against Booth. For the beginning in October up until last week, I learned far more about this ex-con, his business contacts, his allies and enemies than I ever wanted to know about any one person, all to answer the question gnawing at me, "Why isn't he in jail?"

There seems to be roughly a half-dozen federal laws he's broken, and at least as many state laws. He has obvious patterns of behavior, and law enforcement on several levels were/are interested in him. He was ever allegedly found to be in the possession of firearms by the BATF several years ago, but they let him go.

How is it that he keeps getting away with everything, time and again?

From the very beginning I suspected his close friendship with an IRS CID agent was his ace-in-the-hole, and that the agent was running interference for Booth with the BATF in Greensboro (that agent broke the law on his own merely consorting with a convicted felon). But Booth's profile was raised very high by my investigative work, and Washington, DC itself called down the regional office in Charlotte to resolve the issue, which they did (as I recall) in less than a day. In retrospect, the fix was obviously in.

Law enforcement officers who have launched investigations into Booth have had their investigations blocked by the BATF. Even the BATF won't touch him. Since we know the BATF is investigating him on one hand (while blocking the investigation on the other), it suggests that he is getting federal protection somewhere upstream of the BATF.

To the best of my knowledge, only a handful of government agencies would have the kind of clout to stop the various law enforcement agencies interested in Mr. Booth, and they are Cabinet level. Considering the fields that Mr. Booth seems to be most interested in (arms and aircraft), the Department of Justice and/or the Department of Defense are the only agencies that might be helping him, and it is logical to assume they would only help him, if he was helping them.

Something is going on here, and I think this story is getting more interesting, every step of the way and I wouldn't be the least surprised if this is a case of history repeating.

BREAKING NEWS: Squishy Massachusetts RINO Acts Like Squishy Massachusetts RINO

I'm sorry if I don't get bent out of shape to hear that Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts is going to side with the Democrats and vote against the Ryan Plan.

Why can't I go along with the Ryan Medicare plan?

First, I fear that as health inflation rises, the cost of private plans will outgrow the government premium support— and the elderly will be forced to pay ever higher deductibles and co-pays. Protecting those who have been counting on the current system their entire adult lives should be the key principle of reform.

Second, Medicare has already taken significant cuts to help pay for Obama's health care plan. The president and Congress cut a half trillion dollars to the private side of Medicare — meaning seniors are at risk of losing their Medicare Advantage coverage.

Another key principle is that seniors should not have to bear a disproportionate burden. But that doesn’t mean we do nothing. If Medicare is to survive for current beneficiaries and future generations, we must act. The sooner Congress addresses this, the less painful it is likely to be — but more difficult adjustments will be required if we delay.

We should start by making improvements to the traditional Medicare plan.

Of course, like most politicians, Brown doesn't actually suggest any meaningful improvements to the "traditional Medicare plan," because that would mean addressing the fiscal issues, which would lead back to the Ryan plan being the most viable option anyone has offered to date.

Brown does the "traditional politicians plan" instead, and kicks the can down the road so that he doesn't have to deal with it today. This of course insures that when it finally must be addressed in a few short years that the trauma to society will be far more drastic.

The House and Senate game of "kick the can" is little different than someone with cancer refusing to acknowledge they need treatment. It is going to be unpleasant no matter how you choose to deal with it, but the consequences of waiting makes the prognosis ever more dire, and limits treatment options to dangerous and high risk-methods.

My Biggest Fan?

One of the interesting side effects of blogging and writing for a long time, sharing your opinions on controversial subjects and even veering into investigative journalism (as Mike and I tend to do from time to time) is that you irritate quite a few people. Confederate Yankee is a relatively small blog and so I'm sure we don't get a fraction of the hatred of the larger blogs, but apparently I've become interesting enough for someone to track me down.

As I left my house this morning and walked to my car, a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck that was parked on the street several houses down, slammed into reverse, backed up into the intersection and did a right turn, backwards down the street.

Obviously, I thought that was odd, got in my car, and started down the street towards that same residential intersection, which leads to the main road. As soon as I pulled up to the intersection I saw the truck again, and the driver immediately backed up even further.

I left my neighborhood, and sure enough the truck followed a few seconds later.

I turned onto our main street and the truck was behind several other vehicles and he kept drifting over the centerline as if to keep eye contact with my vehicle. At that point I chuckled to myself, figuring that I have seen too many spy movies. Really... why would anyone want to follow me?

Nonetheless, as the truck matched me turn for turn down several more roads I though the possibility interesting enough that I thought I'd prove my suspicions silly by pulling a U-turn on a divided highway, in the middle of farmland, where there is literally no reason to do such a turn.

Sure enough, the truck made a U-turn, and accelerated to close the distance back up. This person was obviously following me, and was obviously an amateur. The truck got caught at the next traffic light and I did another U-turn (to put me back on my original course). The truck drove by, and then quickly changed lanes and ducked into a residential neighborhood, but didn't pursue me any further. I was rather obviously acting like someone trying to confirm or shake a tail, and the truck driver had enough sense to figure out that I would probably be on the phone with the police, giving them a detailed description of their vehicle... which I was.

The vehicle following me was similar to the one in the photo above, a late model Silverado of that color with the same little antenna pods on the roof. The one following me may have been an extended cab instead of the four-door crew cab, and the vehicle following me had a silver toolbox in back, and sported very dark tinted windows. Other than that, the photo above is pretty close.

I hold onto a faint hope that this was just some bizarre behavior, and perhaps a case of them mistaking me for someone else, but since I've taken it upon myself to target an alleged gunrunning ex-con and a few other folks over the years, I guess it is possible I've irritated someone enough to want to find me, and perhaps share their displeasure with my work.

I'm oddly,almost serenely calm about the whole thing, when I suppose I should be scared. I must be really bothering someone, which perhaps means I'm close to affecting the kind of "hope and change" that will put some folks behind bars where they belong.

Comic Writings, May 23, 2011, Part I

Have you ever written something and thought it was pretty darned good, only to reread it a day later—or after it has been returned, bleeding like a sieve from all of the wounds inflicted by an English teacher—and found yourself horrified by the mistakes you overlooked? Sure you have; we all have. It’s just human nature. When we try to proofread immediately after we’ve completed something, the brain plays tricks on us. We tend to see what we think we wrote, the perfectly organized, brilliantly argued, insightful paper we envision, not what we actually committed to paper (or silicon). It is only when we put time and space between a finished writing and our attempt to proofread that we are able to see glaring, black and white reality, and improve it before releasing it upon an unsuspecting world.

Every year, I collect the wounderful products of too-rapid proofreading, or worse (better?) yet, no proofreading at all. Rather than allowing them to die a merciful death, I preserve them for all time, the better to remind us all that there but for the time to effectively proofread go I. I do this because I am an evil English teacher! Dr. Evil would be proud.

Please, gentle readers and fellow butchers of the mother tongue, don’t say that what you’re about to read is evidence of the horrendous failings of our public schools. It is not, and besides, to paraphrase John Cleese in the “We’ve Got A Witch!” scene of “Monty Python and The Holy Grail”: “They got better.” Many of these little deranged gems were written by my finest students, smart, capable kids who allowed themselves to become just a little rushed. If they were perfect, after all, they’d be English teachers! No names have been included so embarrassment does not interfere with laughter and learning.

It has been wisely said that no one ever really finishes a work of literature; they merely, eventually, abandon it in despair. So sit back and enjoy these orphaned offspring of despair, the product of my manifested English evil! I’ll post the second half of these literary lesions next Monday.

Can You Really Use That as an Adjective? Department: “This is evident when he says ‘I noticed some pieces of limbs and suck things floating down…’”

Water Fowl Royalty Department: “What is Huck’s last straw regarding his tolerance for the Duck and the King?”

He Traded Her For Bees? “Huckleberry thinks he’s being mean because he be trades the widow…”

I Hate It When They Cone Them! “Yes. Huck is trying to make sure that no one gets coned…”

What About Junior Gall Bladder Jones? “Sophomore Colon Smith will start at quarterback Friday…”

And Spell Like A Vagabond? “…in my opinion, I write like a hobo.”

Self Respect Department: “I have a lot of self respect for myself.”

Well, That Explains It! Department: “Most of my homework is based on ellipsis.”

I Hate It When That Happens! Department: “My sister annoyed me by verbatimizing me.”

He Didded? “’Jesus wepted’ is a passage quote out of the Bible.”

Drugs In The Movies Department: “…a church funded the movie and in return their youth pastor had to be the heroin…”

Use “Deprive” In A Sentence: “Mr. Johnson likes to deprive me of my beautiful Mohawk.”

Carpet Cleaners Too? “There are vacuums in space…”

And This Surprises You? “After he died, he only had one expression on his face for the rest of the movie.”

I Hate It When That Happens! Department: “The main set is the town cemetery where the main characters are berried.”

Boo! “Tor Johnson was played by a big Swedish wrestler who spooks English very badly.”

Fun With Statistics! Department: “Most of the actors was not that good half the time in the movie.”

How About Twice? “The plot made absolutely no sense once so ever.”

I Hate It When That Happens! “They always had one, maybe two different expirations on their face if that.”

No Kiddin’! “Internment is like volunteering for a job.”

Mangled Aphorisms Department: “The end does not always justify what it means.”

On the Daily Announcements: “The Fire Department needs water; please bring water!”

Use “Migration” In A Sentence: “The migration of birds produces lots of poop on your car.”

Uh, Is This Gross Or What? “Many reporters are in love and obsessed with Barak Obama’s a listening nocturnal muscles.”

This Is Either Really Insightful, Or… “They had to vote for suffrage.”

Automotive Rights Department: “I am inalienable to drive at the moment.”

Student Lamenting His Recent Haircut: “I got my locks of love cut off!”

No Kidding! Department: People are trying to prevent obesity, as it is a widely spread issue…”

Uh, What? “Knowing that federal court have consistently upheld the right of firearms to make reasonable informed choices about their own responsibilities do you favor continuing to allow everyone to own firearms or would you ban all abortions?”

And We All Know How Much That Can Hurt: “Rafael Palmero was proven guilty of the use of performance enhancing drugs and he was stripped of his tittles…”

I Hate It When That Happens: “When American war heroes are angulated and appreciated…”

On The Header of Report Cards: “Smithville ISD will be a highly acclaimed model of Educationsl Excellence.”

A Second Try on the Header of Report Cards: “Smithville ISD will be a highly acclaimed model of Educational Excellance [spelling, obviously not so much].”

That’s A Good Question: “Is cheerleading a really sport?”

Beastly Music Department: “Beethoven is a beast composer.”

Uh, Right: “Oratorio Is Not A Canadian City.”

Everyone’s A Critic: “”It [the William Tell Overture] has very good theme and makes me want to go to sleep.”

Uh, OK: “The London Philharmonic Orchestra preformed the William Tell Adventure.”

Aren’t We All?: “…Rossini wrote softer dynamics to show how relaxed and tranquil nature is after a good shower.”

As Opposed To Ending To Conclude?: “This is the second movement starting to begin.”

Being Longer Has Its Disadvantages: “Some physicians say the longer an athlete the more severe and persistent the symptoms become.”

Self Evident Answers Department: “Narcolepsy: Good or Bad?”

Keep The Guatemalans Out! Department: “It is not morally right for Mexico to build their own fences on their southern borders.”

“I am polydactyl; give me a high seven!”

Use “Comatose” in a Sentence: “Your face will be coma toast.”

It Affects Their Writing Too: “Drugs have a major disaster on students and completely ruins their time college and makes your time worthless.”

Announcement: “Now For the Edge of Aplegiance…”

Define “Canon”: “A deep depression in the earth with steep sides.”

So, You’re a Moth? “Morrie reminds me of my eighth grade teacher Mr. Andrews who was a moth teacher.”

Truth In A Research Paper: “Most 17-year old females can function as adults. Most 17-year old males are still trading baseball cards and giving each other wedgies after gym class.”

Join us again, same batty time, same batty channel, next Monday for more compositional catastrophe!

The Erik Scott Case, Update 11.4: Negligent Retention?

Readers of Update 11.3 posted May 17 (here) will recall that I sent the link to that article to the primary local Las Vegas media outlets, encouraging them to follow up on the fact that Deputy Public Administrator Steve Grodin is a retired police investigator and would therefore have likely been aware that the search of Erik Scott’s home after his death was unlawful. It is, I suspect, surprising to no one that the media has yet to contact me or acknowledge receipt of my message. We shall see if they follow up.

Since that post, additional interesting facts have come to light regarding former officer Thomas Mendiola, the Metro officer who contributed four of the seven shots fired into Erik Scott. Mendiola, as those who have followed this series will recall, fired those shots at close range into Scott’s back as he was falling, face first to the pavement. Mendiola also testified that he did not actually know if Officer William Mosher—who fired the two shots that began the barrage of fire in the midst of a crowd of shoppers that Metro caused to simultaneously leave the Costco—fired the shots he heard or if Erik Scott fired, but this did not prevent his firing into the back of a man who he could not positively say actually presented a danger to himself or others, though he certainly came to appreciate the necessity of saying that at the Inquest.

The facts were presented in a brief May 19th article in the Las Vegas Review/Journal (here): Thomas Mendiola was not only suspended in January when it was revealed that he gave a firearm to a felon, he was still on probation and was fired by Metro in February. Mendiola faces from one to ten years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine if convicted. These developments are significant.

MENDIOLA’S METRO BACKGROUND:

While details are not available from Metro, it is known that Mendiola failed his first attempt at Metro’s police academy, which is 24 weeks long. It is not known why he failed or why he was given a second chance. In professional agencies, recruits who fail are generally not given a second chance unless that failure is due to something outside their control, something like an injury or family emergency, and even then unless the recruit shows obvious promise, a second chance is generally not granted.

In professional agencies, completing a basic academy is merely the first step for new officers, officers who are commonly on probation for at least the first year of their employment. During that probationary period, they may be dismissed at any time without cause or recourse. Police agencies generally do not abuse this power because it is expensive and manpower intensive to recruit and train new officers. They generally do their best to identify and dismiss those who are unfit to be police officers as early in the process as possible. It’s much less expensive.

In many professional agencies, after completing a basic academy, officers enter a field training program where they ride with experienced officers who have been trained to teach and evaluate new recruits. Eventually, over several months, recruits work their way through at least three separate trainers, taking on more and more responsibility as the trainers move more and more into the background, involving themselves only as absolutely necessary. Recruits who have difficulties in the program may be recycled, held back several weeks, or dismissed. It is likely that Mendiola participated in such a field training program as Metro does operate one, however, there is evidence to indicate that many of the officers in that program doing the training have relatively little experience. If this is accurate, it would go a long way toward explaining the behavior of Mendiola and many other Metro officers.

THE SHOOTING AND BEYOND:

At the time that Erik Scott was shot and killed, it now seems clear that Thomas Mendiola was a probationary officer, an inexperienced, untested officer, an officer who, faced with a situation in which he wasn’t sure who was shooting, at whom or why, fired four rounds into the back of Erik Scott. Considering his difficulties in the Academy, this may or may not have been an inevitable consequence of negligent retention.

I first began examining Mendiola’s problems in Update 10. Go to the Scott case archive and scroll down to reach that, and every other, update.

Negligent retention is a legal term referring to the duty of law enforcement agencies to fire officers who they know, or should have known, are unfit to serve as police officers. Failing to establish procedures to identify such officers, failing to follow those procedures, or simply failing to act when reasonable police officials in the same circumstances would have acted, subjects an agency to real civil liability. To that end, anyone suing such an agency will have great interest in all training and personnel records relating to an officer such as Mendiola.

Even if one believes that Thomas Mendiola (and Joshua Stark and William Mosher) were completely justified in shooting Scott, Mendiola’s difficulties did not start, or end, there. According to the affidavit supporting Mendiola’s arrest for giving a firearm to a felon, Mendiola engaged that felon—knowing him to be a felon—in working on his car. This is the first problem in this particular situation. No rational police officer will have anything to do with criminals, particularly convicted felons, off duty. Any rational officer knows that this is trouble of the first order, an extraordinarily stupid thing to do, and likely to get them suspended or fired. When a supervisor asks, “What the hell are you doing hanging around with a felon?” there is no convincing, reasonable reply. Competent officers know this and simply never put themselves, or allow themselves to be put, in such situations.

The second problem arises when Mendiola, over time, continues not only to maintain a relationship with the felon, but actually gives him a handgun as payment for services rendered. Again, the affidavit indicates that Mendiola admitted giving the gun to the felon knowing him to be a felon, and actually discussed with the felon the fact that he shouldn’t be giving him a gun! Such behavior does not inspire great confidence in Mr. Mendiola’s intellect or integrity as a person or police officer, nor does it inspire faith in Metro’s ability to hire and retain competent, rational police officers.

In questioning the actions of Metro in the past, I’ve wondered why Metro arrested Mendiola in the first place. The alleged crime only came to light during an apparently unrelated undercover operation. It need not ever have resulted in arrest. The public need never have known. Metro presumably wanted to keep Mendiola on the team, speaking the official line in the upcoming federal trial. So why did they arrest him?

A primary possibility is that Mendiola was developing a conscience and that possibility became known to Metro. A felony charge hanging over his head could be a powerful incentive to stick to the official story. But why did they fire him? Being arrested for a felony is more than sufficient grounds to fire a probationary officer, in fact, it would probably look very odd indeed if he was not fired. But how to keep him on the reservation when he is no longer a Metro officer? Simple. The threat of ten years in prison can be a powerful incentive. It’s true that a former police officer would likely not get jail time on his first, non-violent felony conviction under normal circumstances and in a normal jurisdiction, but Las Vegas is anything but normal, and a threat of prison, express or implied, would certainly be plausible.

The danger—for Metro--is that now Mendiola is likely feeling very much betrayed and is probably not feeling kindly toward Metro. Considering that he remains one of the principal targets of the pending lawsuit and that a judgment against him in that suit could easily bankrupt him for life, he is in a very bad position with only bad—for him—choices and worse outcomes. Of course, the ultimate threat is always hovering in the background. There is a great deal of desert surrounding Las Vegas and a great many bodies are buried there. Some turn up, from time to time. Thomas Mendiola would certainly know about such possibilities. I’d be surprised if he had not, in fact, been reminded of them in one way or another.

However, even if Mendiola is relatively fearless and willing to honestly depart from the official Metro story, if, for example federal agencies are quietly involved and offering him certain guarantees in return for such testimony, Metro will certainly portray Mendiola as an out-of-control cop they fired as soon as his lack of fitness for the job became obvious. Not only that, Mendiola will be portrayed as a convicted felon, and as such, completely unreliable. He’ll be painted as a disgraced former cop, a convicted felon with an ax to grind. Mosher and Stark, on the other hand, will be painted as heroes, valiant cops recognized by a national pseudo-police organization for their shooting of Erik Scott, a crazed druggie who endangered the public.

Who knows? If Mendiola performs appropriately, the felony might be plea- bargained down to a misdemeanor. The entire matter—like so much before it--might even fall down the Las Vegas memory hole. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that Mendiola might one day find himself wearing a Metro badge again.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

The attorneys for the Scott family will almost certainly want all of Metro’s personnel and training information on Mendiola and the other officers involved. Under the law, they are entitled to it. Whether Metro will provide it, or what will or will not be present in such files, is another matter. However, it now seems quite clear that Metro erred in hiring Thomas Mendiola in the first place, and certainly erred in retaining him. To what degree—if any--these oversights contributed to the death of Erik Scott will be a matter for a jury to decide.

Abandoning Faith, Grace, and Joseph

It's been bugging me since I read it yesterday:

The Haddad children of Middletown, Md., have a lot on their minds: school projects, SATs, weekend parties. And parents who believe the earth will begin to self-destruct on Saturday.

The three teenagers have been struggling to make sense of their shifting world, which started changing nearly two years ago when their mother, Abby Haddad Carson, left her job as a nurse to "sound the trumpet" on mission trips with her husband, Robert, handing out tracts. They stopped working on their house and saving for college.

Last weekend, the family traveled to New York, the parents dragging their reluctant children through a Manhattan street fair in a final effort to spread the word.

"My mom has told me directly that I’m not going to get into heaven," Grace Haddad, 16, said. "At first it was really upsetting, but it's what she honestly believes."

Abby Haddad Carson and Robert Carson are followers of Harold Camping, a self-styled end times prophet, who claims that his interpretations of the Bible say that the Rapture begins today.

As a result of following Camping's teachings, the Carsons have all but abandoned their teen-aged children, Faith, Grace, and Joseph. The children are of course embarrassed by their parents, but that embarrassment goes beyond the normal awkward teen phases to point to a much deeper problem, where their parents have abandoned the children spiritually, and have consigned them to what they expect to be Hell on Earth.

Literally.

What kind of parent does that? They have told their kids point-blank that "we are going to heaven, and you are not." They have not prepared for their children's future, because they feel they have none. And now the future is here, and they are all awkwardly trapped in a Maryland McMansion, all quite alive, and all quite uncomfortable, one would assume.

The Carson parents have no moral authority over their children anymore. They abandoned them spiritually long ago, and preemptively abdicated all responsibility for their future lives from this moment onward. How can they any longer be effective parents when they have lost their credibility?

This awkward realization is going to impact a very small community of end times believers when the sun comes up today and tomorrow and the day after that as it always has. They're going to realize they were fools.

But are they going to understand why?

Are they going to understand that they fell for Camping's false prophesy because they do not want responsibility over their own lives? Once they make that revelation, will they end their lives in despair, or will they try to get the therapy they need to discover why they are so willing to abandon the lives and children the real God gave to them as the most precious of gifts?

While I fear the former and hope for the later, odds are that many of these weak-willed followers will listen when Camping finds the "error" in his end times math and resets the end of the world several more years or decades into the future (he had already done so once before). They will still follow the false prophesy of a near-time Revelation, and continue to create the Hell on Earth for their families, a fate that they so ironically sought to avoid.

Travel Site to Ideological Lapdogs: Get Bent

Felon-funded Media Matters has been trying to undermine Fox News, and launched a campaign against the network's advertisers. One of those targeted advertisers, the travel site Orbitz, said they aren't going to be drawn in to that nakedly partisan game.

The effort by liberal media watchdog group Media Matters to convince half a dozen leading national advertisers to pull their dollars from the Fox News Channel got a high-profile snub Thursday when Orbitz, the travel company, not only declined to participate, but fired back at Media Matters, calling the "Drop Fox" campaign a "smear effort."

...

But Orbitz shot back, describing Media Matters as “\"a political organization that has been funded pretty extensively to go after one network, and we aren't going to engage in that fight," Orbitz spokesman Brian Hoyt told The Hollywood Reporter.

Eric Boehlert and the rest of Podesta's team of angry misfits are paid extremely generously to do one thing, and that is attack conservatives. They are nakedly biased with the clearest of one-sided agendas, and it is good to see that there are companies out there who won't be bullied by their partisan attempts to stifle dissenting voices.

Tales From The Republican Foot-Shooting Race

The Republican campaign for 2012 is going great guns--if you’re a Democrat. Once again, prominent Republicans seem determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of possible victory by not merely shooting themselves in the foot, but by emptying multiple magazines into their own feet. Yes, it’s early, but let’s have a brief review of the most recent Bizarro-World Republican behaviors.

The I Hate It/I Love It Candidate: Mitt Romney recently addressed long-standing conservative concerns (here) about RomneyCare by absolutely praising and standing by RomneyCare! Not only is RomneyCare a clone of ObamaCare which is performing more or less exactly as ObamaCare will certainly perform (not delivering on its promises, not improving things, and costing huge amounts of supposedly unforeseen money), but it makes Romney seem like the dictionary definition of hypocrite when he swears that he’ll repeal ObamaCare while praising its smaller brother. Despite his demonstrated ability to raise loads of money, he is not endearing himself to the conservative base.

The "Republicans Are Every Bit as Bad as Democrats" Candidate: For an educated man who served as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich makes almost unbelievable mistakes (here). Only a few days after declaring his candidacy, Gingrich blew himself and his candidacy up by violating Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment never to speak ill of fellow Republicans. Gingrich claimed that there is such a thing as “right wing social engineering” in the same way that such policies exist on the left. He also said that he supported a “variation” of the ObamaCare Individual mandate, and attacked Paul Ryan’s economic proposal as it relates to Medicare.

Let’s count the ways that Mr. Gingrich stepped on his tongue. Paul Ryan is arguably the only member of Congress who has proposed a comprehensive, serious, well thought out proposal that can actually stave off and improve our looming national economic disaster. Ryan is one man that every rational Republican will want to have on his side in the 2012 campaign. Ryan responded: “with allies like that, who needs the left?” “Right wing social engineering?” Restoring fiscal sanity, adherence to the Constitution and the law and reducing the size of government constitute right wing social engineering? Conservatives don’t think that way; leftists do. Gingrich supports a “variation” of the individual mandate, the single most egregiously unconstitutional and destructive part of ObamaCare, the part without which the entire Rube Goldberg contraption collapses? Mr. Gingrich has apologized to Rep. Ryan, and he and his publicity staff have been feverishly backpedaling in recent days, but the conservative base does not seem in the least impressed. Thanks for the shortest presidential campaign in American history, Mr. Gingrich, and thanks for writing highly effective Democrat campaign commercials for the Dems. As a historian, I’m sure you can appreciate the inherent irony.

The Smart Diplomacy Candidate: Jon Huntsman, former Utah Governor and current Ambassador to China is making considerable noise about running for president. Some conservative and many pseudo-conservative figures have been saying that when the public starts hearing from Huntsman directly, they’ll be very impressed. He recently announced that he firmly believes in global warming because “90% of scientists” believe in it (here). It is that kind of comment that makes one wonder if Huntsman can actually read, and if so, whether he actually reads. Not only is that statistic ludicrously incorrect, all of the best evidence since the inception of Climategate indicates clearly that the Global Warming/Climate Change/Climate Chaos house of cards has almost entirely collapsed because it is one of the largest and most costly frauds every perpetrated. Huntsman did allow, however, that he now believes that Cap and Trade (Tax) is no longer viable. This means, of course, that at one time, apparently recently, he thought that one of the most egregiously stupid and economically destructive leftist power grabs in history was a good idea! And this is a Republican candidate? Has he no idea of mainstream conservative thinking on this issue?

At this stage, one is tempted to wonder which party’s nomination these guys are seeking. Again, it’s early, but it’s a shame--and a potential tragedy--that prominent, ostensibly Republican figures, are behaving and sounding anything but Republican. It would be ironic and bizarre indeed if Conservatives had to hold their collective noses to vote for the eventual Republican nominee running against, of all people, Barack Obama. It is not outside the realm of possibility that a significant number of conservatives might simply stay home rather than vote for anyone who is so obviously far afield of genuinely Conservative values and principles.

Agreement with Mr. Obama is not, under the present state of American decline and danger, a sign of bipartisan cooperation, but a glaringly obvious indicator of a lack of understanding of the nature of Democrats and of the dangers we face. The Democrats care nothing for the Constitution and will do anything necessary to win. Republicans must not abandon fealty to the Constitution, but adopting Obamian policies as their own is a sure path to electoral defeat and national disaster. We can do better. We must do better.

NY Daily News Writer Corners the Market On Ignorance

Considering the competition for that dishonor, NY Daily News writer Joanna Molloy really had to go out of her way to prove her ignorance, and in Ex-NYPD top cop Bill Bratton pushing for overdue ban on assault-weapons ammo clips she certainly does her best, encapsulating several decades worth of ignorance—not to mention stupidity and laziness—in just the second sentence of a dim rant.

Former New York top cop Bill Bratton has joined forces with the city's Citizens Crime Commission to support the ban on assault-weapons ammo clips that have been used in virtually every mass murder since 1984.

We can start by stating with absolute authority that assault weapons ammo clips have never played a part in a mass murder. Not before 1984, and not since.

Never. Ever. Happened.

Ammo clips are nothing more or less than strips of metal—typically spring steel—that hold one or more ammunition cartridges by the base. The rifles of both sides in World War I used ammunition clips. So did the rifles of World War II and Korea, from Mosin-Nagants designed in the 1890s to Enfields and Garands and SKSs that were obsolete by the 1950s.

Below, we see an example of the 8-round en-block clip of the M1 Garand on the left, and the 10-round stripper clip of the SKS rifle on the right. The most common clips in America, they have never been an accessory in any mass murder.

Oh, but I'm being completely unfair, aren't I?

Poor befuddled Ms. Molloy is but a journalist, and can't be expected to tell the difference between a clip and a magazine any more than she should be able to tell the difference between a car and a truck or a cat and a catfish.

A clip holds bullets to load magazines. It is the difference between a gas pump and a gas tank, or a Democrat and a Republican. It's so hard.

But back to Ms. Molloy's contention that "assault-weapons ammo clips that have been used in virtually every mass murder since 1984." Even if we generously allow her to plead obvious ignorance and substitute clip for magazine, her claim still fails to be true.

Arguably the most infamous school shooting in America took place at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold used as their primary instrument of death a Hi Point 9mm carbine that was designed specifically to comply with the very Ban on Scary-Looking Guns that Molloy would see re-implemented.

Richard Farley killed seven without using a single assault weapon in his 1988 murder spree.

The 1998 Westside Middle School Massacre was perpetrated by two kids armed with rifles with standard capacity magazines.

Patrick Henry Sherrill is the reason for the phrase "going postal," and used a pair of .45 ACP pistols to kill 14 of his co-workers in 1986.

Terrorist soldier Nidal Hassan shot up Fort Hood with a pistol.

Atlanta trader Mark Barton killed 12 with a pair of handguns and a hammer in 1999.

Just last year, Omar Thorton used a pair of standard-capacity pistols to kill 9 at a Connecticut beer distributorship.

Seung-Hui Cho perpetrated the Virginia Tech massacre of 32 of his fellow students using standard-capacity magazines in a Glock 19 and Walther P22.

Jiverly Antares Wong used a pair of standard-capacity pistols in Binghampton, NY in 2009.

Shall we go on?

Jeff Weise killed 9 in Red Lake Minnesota using handguns and a shotgun. Likewise, the North Illinois University shooting was perpetrated with pistols and a shotgun. Charles Carl Roberts, infamous for the Amish schoolhouse shooting in 2006, used a 9 mm handgun, 12 gauge shotgun, .30-06 bolt-action rifle. Kip Kinckel, Eric Houston, and Charles Andrew Williams also committed their mass shootings without using any assault weapons.

Purely as a matter of empirical fact, assault weapons and their magazines have been used in just fraction of murders of any kind.

But NY Daily News employee Joanna Molloy isn't acting as a responsible journalist, informed editorialist, or critical thinker. She is an ideologue dedicated to deceiving her readers in order to get them to agree with her.

Come to think of it, Joanna Milloy isn't ignorant. She knows exactly what she is doing. The only question is whether the NY Daily News finds this sort of deception acceptable.

Cornell West No Longer Digging "Hope and Change"

The former cheerleader for Barack Obama now considers the President a "black mascot" and "black puppet."

Cornel West, a Princeton University professor and leading black intellectual, is harshly criticizing President Obama, a candidate he once supported but now calls "a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats."

Don't start getting a warm and fuzzy feeling about Professor West, however. His biggest problem with Obama isn't that he's a egotistical radical destroying the nation, it is that he's an egotistical radical that isn't destroying the nation to benefit blacks. And that the President is a racist.

"I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men," West said. "It's understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he's always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white…When he meets an independent black brother, it is frightening."

I can hardly wait to see how Eric Boehlert and the drones at Media Matters are going to address this. Their default complaint against any criticism of the President is always that the criticism is always caused by racism.

Now that a prominent black liberal academic is effectively making the argument that Obama himself is too white and can't relate to black Americans because he was never part of their shared cultural experience, how can the race-baiters respond?

Quick Takes, May 19, 2011

ITEM: Writing in USA Today on health care, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney promised, if elected president, to immediately issue an executive order to grant waivers to all 50 states for ObamaCare and to call on Congress to repeal it. Unfortunately, for Romney and the nation, he not only refuses to repudiate his RomneyCare Massachusetts version of ObamaCare, but actually defended it. This is a fundamental and foolish mistake that could, if Romney wins the 2012 Republican nomination, hand the election to Barack Obama. A great many Republicans will not forgive Romney his ObamaCare clone, and will simply not support him regardless. They’ll stay home on election day. Pray, gentle readers, for a better nominee and do all that you can to make it happen. Go here for the story.

ITEM: Regularly, public school officials (here), by stubbornly over-reacting to unremarkable, predictable, sometimes constitutionally protected student behavior, give ammunition to those who irrationally hate the public schools. Imagine that: Teenagers actually behaving like teenagers! Such a situation recently occurred in Shelton, Connecticut where senior honor student James Tate asked a girl to the prom by means of a message taped to an exterior wall of the school in 12” high letters. She accepted. School authorities have punished Tate by refusing to allow him to attend the prom, and despite public outrage, have not relented, causing several Connecticut legislators to draft a bill that would allow Tate to attend. So we have an honor student who thinks up a creative way to do something that harms no one, that did not in any way damage public property or disrupt school, and school authorities respond with petty vindictiveness. The citizens of Shelton have reason to question their judgment, particularly at the next school board election.

UPDATE: Tate will we allowed to go to the prom after all. The school’s Headmaster, Beth Smith changed her mind. Superintendent Freeman Burr explained: "James Tate has set for us a new standard for romanticism. Principals have to make difficult decisions every day. No one could have anticipated this kind of response." So let’s review: School officials did the right thing, but only because of mounting national outrage, the community and its mayor turning against them, and the threats of legislators to write legislation that would overturn their decision. Hmm. Sounds more like cowardice than moral reasoning, doesn’t it? Congratulation to James and to the lucky young lady who will accompany him to a prom neither of them will ever forget. Who says there are no happy endings?

ITEM: So GM is profitable—for the moment. This is not, by any means, a vindication of government involvement in spending tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer money to pick winners and losers, and losers there were, like the shareholders who, legally first in line, were completely stiffed in favor of the unions. Go here to The Atlantic for Megan McArdle’s comprehensive analysis of the reality of such “profitability.”

ITEM: And I Thought I Had Some Really Bad Ideas! Department: From the good folks at Hot Air (here) comes news that the Pentagon is considering family visits for the detainees at Gitmo. Gitmo?! Gitmo. Gee, I wonder who is putting the military up to that? Here is a brief--and partial--list of why this is an incredibly bad idea:

(1) There is no historical precedent for giving prisoners of war such privileges and establishing such a precedent would be sheer lunacy.

(2) It would be a propaganda bonanza for jihadists who are taught to always lie about their treatment. Imagine the airtime useful idiots in the media would give to Muslim women and children weeping about the horrible treatment afforded their innocent, saintly menfolk.

(3) It would be a security nightmare. American soldiers patting down Muslim women in hijabs and burkas? Oh, that’ll play well on the news.

(4) The subhuman murderers in Gitmo should be thankful merely to be alive. Remember that these “people” would be delighted to dance on the bleeding corpses of any American man, woman or child they could slaughter, all the while invoking their deranged vision of god. American ethics require humane treatment--which they already get, in spades--nothing more.

ITEM: From Jim Geraghty at National Review Online (here) we discover that President Obama, at a town hall meeting on May 12 blamed the high unemployment rate on “huge layoffs of government workers at federal, state and local levels.” I’ve often marveled at Mr. Obama’s propensity to blatantly lie about things that are ridiculously easy to disprove. No doubt he is so used to the press covering for him that he thinks he can get away with anything. Not this time. The Facts: We are eight million below the most recent peak private sector employment, and not only has federal, state and local public sector employment not declined, it has actually increased. Visit the article for specific statistics. I suppose that one who leads from behind might be expected to deal from under the deck as well. Discuss.

ITEM: We Are Not Amused. At his El Paso immigration address, Mr. Obama adopted a mocking, condescending tone in attempting to ridicule Republicans. The residents of the border region, suffering daily from all of the problems associated with the influx of illegal aliens and drug criminals, which have recently included major fires set by aliens, were not in the least amused and have written to Mr. Obama to express their displeasure at his idea of humor. Visit Fox News (here) for the whole story. There has been speculation in the Lamestream media that Mr. Obama has a real chance to win Texas, in 2012 hence his visit. Right. You do that by denying a disaster declaration for helping with catastrophic wildfires in Texas, which of course, he has done. This is just another example of Mr. Obama’s utter cluelessness about the reality of the lives of the God and gun clingers in flyover country/red America, and of his utter lack of caring about those lives, particularly when they conflict with his Socialistic desires. But hey, the border is more secure than ever! Just ask Janet Napolitano--or Mr. Obama.

ITEM: Oh Goody! Department: The National Journal reports that Medicare will run out of cash in 2024, five years earlier than was expected, and Social Security will run out in 2036, a year earlier than expected. Go here for the entire story. But not to worry; I have no doubt that this is at the top of Mr. Obama’s “to ignore/make worse” list.

ITEM: So what’s the trouble with America anyway? Is it that Americans are rustic boobs, unsophisticated, superstitious idiots who bitterly cling to God and guns, who have no nuance, who are racist, sexist, and every other kind of “ist?” Or is our current difficulty that we are ruled by a self-imagined “elite” class of effete intellectual snobs whose stratospheric self-regard is woefully misplaced? Is it that our elite leaders actually have no common sense, believe America to be the problem in the world, and in reality, have no leadership skills at all? Go here to read an interesting essay on the topic by Walter Russell Mead.

ITEM: So Newt Gingrich is running for President? He is indeed. Boy oh boy, we finally have a genuine conservative in the race! Not so much. In an appearance on Meet The Press over the weekend, Gingrich opposed Rep. Raul Ryan’s (R-WI) proposed Medicare reforms and said that he supports a “variation” of the individual mandate. In other words, he believes the Federal Government has the power to force you to buy whatever health insurance policy it prefers. Uh, so which party’s nomination is Gingrich seeking? Go here to Hot Air for the story.

GINGRICH UPDATE: From Hot Air (here), bad news from Iowa for Newt Gingrich:

“As he was getting ready to leave a speaking engagement Dubuque resident Russell Fuhrman approached him in the lobby of the Holiday Inn:

‘Get out now before you make a bigger fool of yourself,’ Fuhrman said directly to Gingrich.

Gingrich, visibly stunned, quickly moved forward to talk with other guests…

‘I’m a strong Republican but he’s an embarrassment to our party,’ Fuhrman said.”

Well, yeah.

ITEM: THEY DID WHAT?! Department: Via Hot Air (here) the Indiana Supreme Court has recently ruled that citizens have no right to resist an unlawful police entry into their homes. It is a long established principle of law that citizens may resist an unlawful arrest and unlawful entry onto their property, so what is the Indiana SC talking about?

““We believe … a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence,” David said. “We also find that allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved without preventing the arrest.”

David said a person arrested following an unlawful entry by police still can be released on bail and has plenty of opportunities to protest the illegal entry through the court system.”

Great. In the name of preventing violence, the Bill of Rights is out the window. It would be hard to imagine what leftist public policy goal could not be implemented under that standard. Oh, and after they’ve been arrested, paid tens of thousands in bail, their homes are trashed, their property illegally seized, they pay tens, even hundreds of thousands to attorneys, after many years, citizens might receive justice. Ah gentle readers, it’s the bold new age of Obamian hope and change.

ITEM: Brief, Shining Moment of Political Clarity Department: From PowerLine (here) comes a bit of enlightenment by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah):

“They [Democrats] want to intimidate all of the corporations in this country and other businesses from giving money that might help Republicans. And they know it's unconstitutional what they're doing, they know it's wrong, but they're going to go do it anyway, because it's political time to them. And frankly, it's been political time from Day One with this president. They play politics very, very tough, they play it well, and they don't give a damn about what's right and what's wrong.”
Just so.

ITEM: Imagine a government policy so brilliant, so useful, so full of cost savings and yummy goodness that the very government that rammed it down the collective throats of the public has to grant 1372 waivers (to date) to that very policy. From The Hill (here) we discover that the Obama Administration has granted another 204 ObamaCare waivers, bringing the grand total to 1372. Many of the recipients? Labor unions. Some people might consider this to be ironic, idiotic, or just plainly wrong, but they’d likely cling to God and guns too.

ITEM: What if they came to talk about flag burning, but nobody came? A LSU student recently announced plans to burn an American flag in the name of due process, peace, justice, no bacon on hamburgers or something, but was apparently surprised to find that those God and gun clingers who happen to live and attend school in Louisana were not, as the British monarcy might put it, amused. So he showed up to speak about his ideals and was met with jeers and water balloons and had to be escorted away by the police for his own safety. Go here to Hot Air for the story, video and commentary.

Indeed, this amounts to a heckler’s veto, and did deny the flag burner an opportunity to express his views. Not a good thing. A better thing would have been to ignore him entirely, or in the face of bad speech, to provide good speech. Let’s not adopt the tactics of the Left.

ITEM: The Scales Fell From His Eyes! Department: Global warming is a fraud. Who says so? David Evans, a scientist who was in the very heart of the international global warming machine for many years. Go to Hot Air (here) for the story of a scientist whose integrity wouldn’t allow him to continue to perpetrate an expensive, manipulative fraud on the public. An example:

“The debate about global warming has reached ridiculous proportions and is full of micro-thin half-truths and misunderstandings. I am a scientist who was on the carbon gravy train, understands the evidence, was once an alarmist, but am now a skeptic.”
An article worth reading.

ITEM: Go here for an interesting—possibly annoying—article that essentially postulates that women don’t lie about serious matters such as rape allegations. Right. Tell that to the Duke LaCrosse players. In reality, during my police service, I discovered that about 50% of rape allegations were false, and not false because the police—including me—are misogynistic cavemen who think all women are prostitutes and deserve what they get, but because the evidence—virtually always including their confessions of falsehood—proved it. Human beings don’t lie (women are human beings, right?)? Really?

ITEM: The union is your friend; admit it or we’ll kill you! Go here for an interesting—and infuriating--story about how the Communications Workers of America treats its members who don’t appreciate union bosses looting union coffers. Beatings and death threats sound familiar? We must unionize all of America! All praise the NLRB! These are the President's allies and strongest supporters, gentle readers.

ITEM: Louis Renault Award of the Week: John Kerry thinks Syria’s dictator is “obviously not a reformer now.” I was shocked, shocked! to learn this from Jeff Jacoby (here). And to think, all Assad had to do was kill at least 1000 of his own people (to date) to change the slow-learning Massachusetts senator’s mind. It’s rather a shame that Mr. Obama has come to no similar conclusion, preferring instead his default position on foreign affairs: interminable dithering and paralyzing indecision. Read Jacoby’s short essay for more.

ITEM: Where Do I Go To Get My Reputation Back? These days, accusations of unprofessional teacher behavior are common. As a high school teacher, I am very much aware that I have a large, glowing target on my back, more so, in many ways, than when I was a police officer. Go to the Washington Post (here) to read a cautionary article on a teacher falsely accused, eventually exonerated, but never made whole.

ITEM: By the way, I hear many Republican presidential candidates saying that they want to “reform” education. Why is that the business of the Federal Government, and why should Republicans think that way? Aren’t conservatives supposed to be for small government without saying “I absolutely support small government, but X, Y and Z are so important we just have to big government them to death?” Discuss.

ITEM: Occasionally, the police screw up so obviously and badly that they confirm the generally unwarranted suspicions of their worst critics. Such a case is reported by John Stossel (here). Philadelphia stopped and badly mistreated 25 year old Mark Fiorino who was openly and legally carrying a handgun. After discovering that what Fiorino was doing was completely legal, they let him go, only to lodge charges of reckless endangerment and disorderly conduct after Fiorino posted an audiotape he recorded of the incident on youtube. Why did they file the charges? It’s their opinion that because he told the officers he was behaving legally--and he was--he was somehow violating the law. Some people just don’t know how to quit when they’re behind.

ITEM: Is anyone else as horrified to see Sen. John Kerry (D-N. Vietnam) conducting smart diplomacy with Paahkeestaahn as I am? You know, John Kerry, the traitor who stabbed his fellow soldiers in the back, soldiers who were still on the battlefield? Kerry who attended a meeting planning the murder of Congressmen? Kerry who faked his medal citations? Kerry whose photo hung in the North Vietnamese war museum as a great hero of the glorious revolution? Kerry who repeatedly met with Communist enemies of America without government permission during the Vietnam War? Can anyone actually imagine him bargaining for American interests? Can anyone imagine him not denigrating America? Discuss.

ITEM: Louis Renault Award, Congressional Edition: From Hot Air (here) we learn that 20% of the most recent 204 ObamaCare waivers went to very toney businesses in Nancy Pelosi’s Congressional district. Imagine that! Yes, upscale eateries that charge $59 for a steak received waivers. I’m shocked, shocked! that the Obama Administration, the most transparent in history, would be involved in anything that smacks of political pay offs! Shocked!

ITEM: On a Fox News broadcast on May 16, Charles Krauthammer noted that Newt Gingrich committed a “capital offense against the 11th commandment.” Krauthammer was referring to Ronald Reagan’s commandant that thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican. In the estimation of Mr. Krauthammer, Mr. Gingrich has irreparably damaged his presidential chances. I suspect he’s correct. Discuss.

ITEM: Doesn’t This Woman Ever Think Before She Opens Her Mouth? DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano recently claimed that “very, very, very few people get a [TSA] patdown.” Uh, what? On my most recent trip through the wonderful world of TSA-controlled airports, I was patted down once in four passes through checkpoints, making it a 25% matter for me. I, a 6’ tall, 57 year old, really white guy with a military-style haircut and no back-country beard or mustache, certainly observed a sufficient number of pat downs on those occasions—none of which appeared to be of people who looked even remotely like young, Muslim males about to scream “Allahu Akbar!’’—to convince me that “very, very, very few…” is a very, very very big misapprehension foisted by a woman who apparently has never been burdened by an acquaintance with reality. Visit Hot Air (here) to find additional statistical evidence of Ms. Napolitano’s residence in an alternative universe or on another planet.

ITEM: First there was Rambo, now, Rambama! A toymaker (here) has capitalized on the successful SEAL takedown of Osama Bin Laden by making a muscular, GI Joe-like version of Obama with an M1-A4. That’s rather like casting Don Knots as The Terminator, isn’t it? Some things you just can’t parody. Irony factor: Real SF operators don’t need action figures; they are action figures. "Action figures? We don' need no stinkin' action figures!" Make your Christmas gift orders now!

And on that pseudo-manly, faux-warrior-like note, I must bid all a fond farewell until next Thursday. Thanks for stopping by, and I’ll see you then!

Newt Gingrich Nukes His Campaign

The most politically-connected candidate from either party is trying to claim outsider status.

He is first-class academic and a very bright guy, but Gingrich is also ideologically unreliable and morally bankrupt. Luckily he's chosen to remind everyone of his ego and many foibles, including those that don't remember his last stint in power.

Good News! The False Profit False Prophet Still Believes in Us

The man some already regard as the worst President in America just part of the way through his term reveals that he still has faith in us, and gives us his blessing.

I'm sure it makes your day to know that.

Not Today Dear, I Have a Headache

Not much in the way of productivity today until I get this migraine/cluster whatever-the-Hell-it-is headache under control. In any event, I have a review of Butler Creek magazine loaders up at LuckyGunner for American shooters, and a post up at Pajamas Media about the guns favored by certain Mexican shooters, and from whence they came.

Consider it my contribution to multiculturalism.

S'il est coupable, l'Amérique doit exécuter Dominique Strauss-Kahn

"If he is guilty, America should execute Dominique Strauss-Kahn," is what I hope the French take away from the headline, though Google Translate doesn't always work as intended.

I say this because once upon a time in America, Strauss-Kahn's violent sexual assault would have resulted in a lynching by outraged citizens. Some years later, in some parts of the country, his crime could have been prosecuted as a death penalty case (side note: I am still personally in favor of forcible rape or sexual assault being treated as a capital crime). As it is, the disgraced Frenchman stands the possibility of spending his remaining years in an American prison, unless he OJ's his way out with high-priced lawyers and political pressure.

The French seems stunned at his "perp walk" and incarceration in Riker's, his suicide watch and prison jumpsuit. In their class-driven society, such treatment for a man of his stature is unthinkable.

It highlights one of America's greatest ideals. No man is above the law. It isn't true all the time, and especially when the offender is rich and powerful and influential enough, but we do have our moments.

The poor woman Strauss-Kahn is accused of raping and sodomizing is a Muslim. Sadly, in her own barbaric culture in many parts of the world she would most likely be put to death for her "crime," or would face nearly insurmountable odds in getting a conviction, needing multiple male witnesses, etc, and even if successful in putting her abuser in prison, faces the distinct possibility of an "honor killing" from her own family because of the twisted beliefs of her misogynistic donkey-humping cult.

Only in America could the victim of this violent crime have a possibility of finding justice, and her accused be treated from the outset like a criminal he most likely is instead of a privileged elite. Remember that as America-hating elitists try to turn us into a lesser nation.

MIKE ADDS: What Bob said.

The Erik Scott Case, Update 11.3: The Post-Mortem Search of Scott’s Home Revisited

NOTE: THIS POST WAS UPDATED 05-22-11. SEE THE END OF THE ORIGINAL POST FOR THE UPDATE.

Whenever I begin to think that the Scott case could not become more convoluted or bizarre, something new turns up. In recent updates, I’ve focused on issues that are not absolutely central to the Scott case, but that are closely related, and that tend to shed additional light on the culture and procedures of Metro and Las Vegas. It is that culture and those procedures that almost certainly made Erik Scott’s death likely, and that continue to result in beatings and worse for citizens of Las Vegas. This update, however, returns to one of the central issues of the aftermath of the shooting of Scott.

Update 6, October 14, 2010 was dedicated to the extra-legal activities of one Steve Grodin, Deputy Public Administrator of Clark County. After the shooting of Erik Scott at approximately 1300 on July 10, 2010, Grodin almost immediately began to call Erik’s brother, Kevin Scott, demanding permission to enter Erik’s home, ostensibly to protect it and the firearms and valuables within. Kevin Scott was then traveling across the nation by air, and Grodin made a number of additional calls, actually claiming that he had absolute authority to enter Scott’s home and seize property within, but still trying to get Kevin’s permission, permission that Kevin unfailingly refused to give. Eventually, sometime after 1900, against Kevin’s clearly expressed wishes and against the orders of the only person who had legal control of the property under Nevada law--Erik’s girlfriend and co-resident Samantha Sterner--Grodin, accompanied by at least one Metro officer, used a locksmith to enter the home and to seize property.

Before we continue, here are links to related information:

For Update 6, 10-14-10, go here.
For Update 7, 10-23-10, go here.
For “Vegas Media Wakes Up,” 02-26-11, go here.
For “Linkedin” information on Steve Grodin, go here.
NOTE: The audio recording of Grodin’s call to Kevin Scott is no longer posted on YouTube.

As Update 6 explains in detail, the police had no cause to enter Scott’s home or to seize anything within. His home and its contents were completely removed in time and space from his death at the hands of the police at the Summerlin Costco; they had no relation whatever to the shooting and thus had no value as evidence--one doesn’t prosecute dead men--and could not be the proceeds of a crime as Scott committed no crimes prior to his death. No rational judge would authorize a search warrant absent a falsified affidavit, and the police surely could not afford something like that to be found. Having no warrant, and an absolute, one might be tempted to say panicky, need to get into the home, the police used Grodin, acting in his role as Deputy Public Administrator, to bring their plan to fruition.

Putting aside the fact that the police had no warrant and therefore no lawful authority to enter Scott’s home, there was another major problem. Nevada law expressly prohibits the Public Administrator’s office from being involved with any estate “held in joint tenancy unless all joint tenants are deceased.” This entirely rational prohibition keeps the PA’s office from, for instance, seizing the home and property of a man who has died while his widow is still alive and in control of the property. In the Scott case, Sterner was clearly a joint tenant. She actually lived there with Scott, had the requisite keys, her clothing and other property was there, and she told the police--and Grodin--repeatedly, that she lived there and consistently refused them entry. Scott’s property--their joint property--was in no danger; Sterner was in control of it. Yet the police and Grodin not only entered and selectively seized property, they installed a new lock and refused to give her the keys, locking her out of her own home on the day that the police killed the man she lived with and loved within inches of her. She was not able to reenter her home until Kevin Scott could fly in from out of state a day later to obtain and give the new keys to her.

If the police and Grodin knew they had no authority to enter the home, if the only lawful joint tenant, Samantha Sterner, refused them entry, why did they keep calling Kevin Scott to ask his permission, why did they ultimately enter the home and what did they take?

Obviously, the police and Grodin weren’t thinking clearly--if obeying the law was their goal. Yet, to them it was crystal clear that they could not acknowledge Sterner as the joint tenant of the residence. She could not be allowed to take them to the residence and let them in, because no one could be allowed to see what they hoped to find and take. After all, if she, using her key, let them in her home, how could they possibly say that there was no one to safeguard it? Therefore, they had to maintain the fiction that they were honestly trying to safeguard the property, a property that needed no safeguarding. So they repeatedly called Kevin Scott and made a great show of asking his permission, this despite the fact that under Nevada law Kevin had no more authority to give such permission than a random passerby.

Why were they so desperate to enter the home? In Update 7 I outlined a theory of the case that well fits the known facts. It was necessary to the Metro story of the event that Scott be carrying his Ruger .380 pistol at the time he was shot, that he be carrying a backup handgun that those who knew, loved and lived with him maintain he never carried but kept in his home as a home defense weapon. Metro knew of this pistol because his locally required “blue card” for that handgun was in his wallet, a wallet freshly stained with his blood and recovered from his body at the scene. Scott was not, of course, actually carrying the gun at the Costco, only his Kimber .45ACP pistol, so it had to be found and seized.

The police searched Sterner’s car which was in the Costco lot. This is significant in that it, like Scott’s home, had no relation at all to the shooting. There was no legitimate legal reason to search it, but obviously, the police hoped to find the Ruger--Sterner, not knowing what they wanted at the time and in shock, gave them permission--and were disappointed, making the search of Scott’s home mandatory. It was only there that the Ruger could be found. Read Update 7 to discover the very logical reason why this small, black handgun figures so prominently in the Scott case and why it explains Metro and Grodin’s panicky desperation to get into Scott’s home.

The police and Grodin took a variety of items including a watch, several firearms, a ceremonial saber mounted in a shadow box given to Scott by his parents upon his graduation from West Point, a paintball gun and several other items, but the Ruger--which was displayed by the Police at the Inquest--never appeared on police evidence forms as having been collected at Scott’s home, and the items cataloged by Grodin were returned to the Scotts--at considerable expense--within a few weeks, an unusually rapid procedure, according to those who have dealt with the PA’s Office. The Ruger did not appear on police documents because it had to be “discovered” on Scott. It was taken in an almost certainly illegal search and Metro’s fingerprints, literally and figuratively, could not appear on it.

On February 26, 2011 I posted a short article noting that the local Las Vegas media had finally gotten around (more than five months after I wrote about it) to mentioning the involvement of the Public Administrator’s Office in the Scott case, but they did not mention or interview Grodin or deal with any of the real issues in a meaningful way, merely accepting platitudes from John Cahill, the elected Public Administrator.

I revisit the issue in this update because I’ve discovered something about which I was not aware at the time, something that removes any benefit of the doubt I accorded Grodin in Update 6: Steve Grodin is a retired police officer. On the Linkedin site, he is listed thus:

Steven Grodin
Investigator at Public Administrator’s Office
Las Vegas, Nevada Area / Government Administration
Current:
Investigator at Public Administrator’s Office
Past:
Investigator at Cook County Sheriff’s Department, Retired Officer / Investigator at COOK COUNTY SHERIFF’S POLICE
Education:
SIU

Linkedin bills itself as the “World’s Largest Professional Network.” It is essentially a social networking site, and those who choose to participate do so voluntarily and enter their own information on the site, as Grodin no doubt did. For example, the word “administrator” is consistently misspelled on the entry, unlikely on a professionally posted and entered site. Unless this entry on the site is in some way falsified--and there is no known evidence of that--or unless there are two Steven Grodins working for the Clark County Public Administrator’s Office, it is reasonable to conclude that Steve Grodin, Deputy Clark County PA, does have a significant police background with all of the experience and knowledge that implies.

Why is this significant? Because in Update 6, I assumed that Grodin had no law enforcement background, and as such, had no real idea of the warrant requirements of the Fourth Amendment, the part of the Bill of Rights from which case law regarding search and seizure comes. I essentially assumed that Mr. Grodin might have been misled by the Police who told him only enough to enlist his aid without telling him anything about their real intentions. I wrote that update making clear that even if Grodin knew nothing of the law regarding searches, the police surely did. I also made a distinction between the legal liability of the police and Mr. Grodin, observing that he would, as a civilian with presumably no law enforcement experience or knowledge, likely have no such liability, particularly if he was being used by the police and had no idea what they intended. It now seems certain that this was not then, and certainly is not now, the case.

The term “investigator” is essentially interchangeable with “detective,” and is common in American law enforcement. Such officers are higher ranking than patrol officers, and enjoy status as specialized criminal investigators who routinely deal with search and seizure issues. They would know how to make search warrant applications, how to make affidavits and returns, and would well know all of the law, policies and issues relating to searches. For Detectives, this is simply part of their daily work. Such knowledge is expected of them.

Consider too that the fact that the police did not seek a search warrant is particularly revealing. Searches incident to police shootings are always done with warrants for many compelling reasons. That there was apparently not even an attempt to obtain a warrant in this case unquestionably indicates that the police knew that they had no grounds for obtaining a warrant and that no competent, honest judge would issue one.

As a former detective/investigator, Steve Grodin would certainly understand the issues relating to searching Scott’s home over and beyond the small body of Nevada law relating to Public Administrators, a body of law he also ignored (the relevant statutes are posted in Update 6). Steve Grodin cannot credibly claim to be an uninformed public servant doing the bidding of the police in good faith; he knows better. If the police have in fact broken the law as seems likely, he may be, at the least, an accessory after the fact. This is a possibility that Mr. Grodin would be wise to consider with care as the Scott case, unlike virtually every police shooting before it, is not going away.

In Update 6, I asked several questions about the search and seizure of Scott’s home. Some remain, and others have been raised by the knowledge that Grodin must have known that the search and seizure were illegal.

(1) How exactly was Grodin involved? We know that he began calling Kevin Scott shortly after Erik Scott was killed. The Police at the scene, shortly after the shooting, found Erik’s blue card for the Ruger, and searched for it in Sterner’s car at the Costco. The only logical explanation is that the police called Grodin, and likely, specifically Grodin.

(2) Is Steve Grodin Metro’s “go-to guy” at the Public Administrator’s office? How often have they used him in the past? How often has he accompanied the police on cases, and which cases? How many of those cases involved the deaths of citizens at the hands of the police? PA Cahill asserted that his office often accompanies the police. Do the police know that because of Grodin’s background, he is willing to “help” them with unusual “problems?” Or did the officers who contacted Grodin lie to him, tricking him into arguably violating the law?

This is unlikely for several obvious reasons. Grodin, by means of his background, must have known that the police were enlisting his aid because they could not obtain a warrant, or because they did not want to leave a paper trail, in essence because they wanted to operate outside the law and wanted his agency to provide cover. Perhaps, particularly if Grodin has had a long-standing relationship with Metro, he simply knew what to do when he got the call. Ask no questions, do what he was asked to do, avoid knowing anything he wasn’t supposed to know. Grodin had to know that he was being used to conduct unusual, improper, probably illegal business on behalf of the police. Did he ask why they needed his help? Did he ask if they had a warrant, and if not, why not? What was he told? In any case, Grodin had to know that what he was doing was wrong and that it likely violated the law.

(3) Who contacted Steve Grodin and what did they tell him? How many officers accompanied him to Scott’s home and what were their names? What did he and the officers discuss, exactly?

(4) How did Grodin know, as he told Kevin Scott, that he was looking for “firearms?” Did the police tell Grodin about the Ruger? Who found it in Scott’s home and what did they do with it?

(5) Why was Grodin, with his background and knowledge, willing to assist the police in arguably breaking the law?

FINAL THOUGHTS:

As always, it is possible that I am making errors small or large because I simply don’t have all the facts, no one does. Metro is not releasing that information, so I must rely on experience. But in the matter of the search of Scott’s home and the seizure of property within, there is little chance of error. The Fourth Amendment establishes clear criteria for search and seizure and the fact remains that the police had no grounds to enter Scott’s home or to take anything from it. The fact remains that the Public Administrator’s office likewise had no grounds under the PA statutes to enter Scott’s home or to take anything from it.
Now that it’s clear that Steve Grodin had to have known better, there can be no doubt about what happened. That said, as always, I will be pleased to promptly make any necessary corrections if the necessity of making them is brought to my attention.

I will be sending the Las Vegas media this update and encouraging them to follow up. No doubt, the Scott family attorneys will also be asking these questions, and more. I will, of course, continue to report developments as they arise.

UPDATE ADDED 05-22-11:

Concerning the relationship of Erik Scott and Samantha Sterner, frequent commenter “Federale” writes:

“Since they were room-mates, or more accurately, living as man and wife, but in sin, there is no legal relationship between the two. Therefore she had no authority to either approve or deny access. Some people are under the impression that sleeping together gives one legal rights and privileges. It does not. If Scott had made her an honest woman by marrying her, then the story would have been different. But under Nevada law neither sibling nor the person he was having sex with had any authority over Scott's estate.

Fornication outside marriage may be fun, but does not confer any legal status.”

Only Nevada Revised Statute 253.0415 2(a) addresses joint tenancy in the context of the duties of the Public Administrator (Section 253 is the section of the statutes dealing with Public Administrators). This section specifically prohibits a Public Administrator’s involvement where a “joint tenant” exists. Only if all joint tenants are deceased may a Public Administrator be involved. Section 111 of the NRS deals with joint tenancy, but in the specific context of wills and similar agreements, and the disposition (sale and acquisition) of real property—real estate such as homes and land—and makes clear that joint tenancy may be between man and wife, and/or “others.” This is entirely rational and necessary statutory language, but it does not specifically, in express or implied language, apply to section 253.

Police officers deal with securing cars, apartments and homes on a daily basis, usually when they arrest their owners. Officers do not, in such circumstances, demand to review marriage licenses, deeds, court rulings, or other paperwork. If they reasonably believe that another responsible adult can safely take possession of a car, apartment or home, they allow them to do so. Roommates frequently take over for those arrested or otherwise indisposed, as do friends, neighbors, or other responsible adults willing to assume the responsibility. All of this is within a police officer’s discretion.

What might give them a reasonable belief? That fact that the person involved has the keys to the residence, or lives with the person arrested, that all of their clothing and possessions are present in the residence as opposed to contained in a few boxes in a corner of a living room, that the person is an obviously sober, responsible adult. Such was the case with Samantha Sterner. All of these factors are more are commonly taken into consideration. In all of my years of police work, I, and every officer I have ever known, would not have hesitated to recognize Sterner as the legitimate joint tenant/resident of the home she shared with Erik Scott.

Officers often deal with unmarried couples in search and seizure situations. Generally speaking the law is quite clear, as is common, professional police procedure. Unmarried people living together may consent or withhold consent to search any areas they use in common. If two roommates, for example, do not grant the other unrestricted access to their bedrooms, then only they may consent to a search of their bedroom, but both may consent for common areas. In the case of an unmarried couple who have no such restricted access, either is fully responsible for the entire dwelling and may indeed deny or grant the authorities access.

As I noted in past updates, in any case where access is denied, the police have one option: obtain a search warrant. That they did not do so in the Scott case speaks volumes. Any competent investigator working a police shooting case would absolutely demand that any related search be done with a warrant if for no other reason than to ensure that no inadvertent mistakes are made which might later harm the case, or simply, which might make them look incompetent. That they did not obtain a warrant directly suggests that the officers knew that they did not have lawful grounds to obtain one. Using Deputy Public Administrator Steve Grodin suggests that they were desperate to enter that home with or without lawful authority and needed Grodin to provide cover. Update 7 (scroll down in the Erik Scott Case archive) contains a theory of why the police considered that search mandatory.

Indeed, Kevin Scott did not have authority to consent to a search. He didn’t live there, not even in the same state, and was not a joint tenant. Samantha Sterner was, but she was ignored to provide cover for the search. After all, who took custody of the residence after they were able to get the new keys from Kevin Scott? Samantha Sterner, the woman who actually lived there and had unrestricted access to and control of the home. In any normal circumstance, the police would surely have recognized that and listened to Sterner. In this case, they had compelling, likely illegal, reasons to do otherwise.

The law recognizes and the police understand that unmarried people live together for a wide variety of reasons and under a wide variety of circumstances. That two people are not married matters no more in the circumstances under discussion here than their respective race or gender. Being unmarried does not exclude one from control of or responsibility for a home, a car or other property. If I loan a friend my car for a month, I have granted them complete control over that vehicle for that time, and no written, legal document is required. If I fall in love with a woman and we decide to live together, there is no question that we share joint custody and control of our dwelling, absent any specific limiting agreement, which again, need not be in writing. If I have a female roommate, the same applies. If my sister moves into my home, absent agreed restrictions, she too is my joint tenant under the law—to say nothing of common sense—and has all the rights and responsibilities that my wife would enjoy, even if my wife is also living there.

None of this is unusual. There is a substantial, clear body of Fourth Amendment law, including many cases decided by the US Supreme Court, which defines and confirms exactly what I outline here.

Whatever intimate relationship a couple might enjoy—and in this case, “Federale” is making assumptions and allusions not supported by any known or knowable evidence--is also immaterial. In short, no one is in any position to label Erik Scott or Samantha Sterner fornicators, nor would any possible intimate relationship, or lack thereof, have any bearing whatever on this case.

In fact, police officers are almost universally prohibited from imposing their moral beliefs on others. Police officers may think whatever they like, but they must treat everyone with dignity and respect while on the job. Allowing their religious or moral strictures to interfere with their work, or to color the manner in which they deal with the public is grossly unprofessional and keeps them from serving the public and doing their jobs. Any rational person considering this can surely see the wisdom and necessity involved.

I’ll leave it to the good sense and good manners of our readers to consider the motivations and character of any who would speak of the dead and of an innocent woman, a woman brutalized and harassed by the very police that shot and killed the man she loved, in this manner.

Letter From The Teacher #1: Mandatory, High Stakes Tests

Anytown High School, Any State, USA

To: Mr. & Mrs. Smith
From: Mr. English Teacher
Re: Apology

Dear Mr. & Mrs. Smith:

As I stand here watching your daughter, Lauren, working diligently on her mandatory, high-stakes test, I realize that I owe you--and all of the parents of my students--an apology. So I sincerely apologize. Why am I apologizing? Because this week, I’m wasting your daughter’s time. In fact, teachers across the state are wasting their student’s time by forcing them to take a series of state-mandated, high-stakes tests. And you should know that it’s not really my fault, but I feel badly about it just the same, so I’m apologizing.

Whose fault is it? For once it really is, more or less, George W. Bush’s fault. I’m sure you realize that Texas is in many ways, for good or ill, the national educational model. Well, when Mr. Bush was governor of Texas, he discovered that Hispanic kids weren’t doing as well in reading and other academic skills as other kids, and out of genuine concern for their welfare and with the best intentions, he wanted to do something about it.

What’s wrong with that? Nothing really, except that he was a businessman, so he applied what he knew--the business model--to education. Soon, all of the kids in Texas--and pretty much everywhere else when he became president--became toasters.

Let’s say that you manufacture toasters, and everything is just toasty, until you discover that a disturbing portion of your toasters come off the assembly line with faults. You immediately began a quality assurance program, which consists of testing, to determine what is wrong so that you can fix it. You test the workers, and the machinery and the process, and you find and fix the faults, and lo and behold, shiny, perfectly happy toasters sprout wings and fly from the assembly line to live long, warmly productive lives in American kitchens.

The problem is that kids aren’t toasters, and the education process has little relation to the business world. In education, our toasters can decide not to come to the factory. They can decide not to accept parts. They can annoy the workers and the other toasters and interfere with the entire process. They can, if they wish, leap off the production line and run out of the factory, never to be seen again.

Education is a calling, if you will, that is very prone to fads, fads that are so brilliant, so bold, so amazing that they will revolutionize education, at least that’s what their authors promise. Except of course, they never do--revolutionize education, I mean. Usually, they make it harder for teachers to teach and students to learn, and usually, they make things worse. They almost never actually help.

Fads tend to last until the people who staked their reputations and careers on the fads simply fade away, are fired, are run out of town in the manner of villagers attacking Dr. Frankenstein’s castle with torches and pitchforks, or a more attractive fad comes along to replace the current fad. The problem, you see, is that these fads tend to become nation-wide holy writ, even laws, and it often takes a decade or more for a fad that was a really stupid idea in the first place--which teachers would have said if anyone had bothered to actually listen to them, which almost no one does--to go away. And oh dear, do we waste billions of dollars on idiotic ideas!

Do you remember the “Open Classroom Concept” of the 70s and early 80s? It was the going fad for more than a decade. The idea was that classrooms were dull, boring boxes that squashed creativity. Why, if only we built schools without walls, we would have previously unimaginable creative potential! Think of the flexibility, the freedom, the brilliance of such a stunning, new concept! And so schools without walls were built across the nation. Untold billions were spent at a time when a billion dollars was real money. And it was an utter disaster, as any teacher could have told them, had they bothered to ask or listen.

With no walls, the distraction factor went off the scale. The disrupting effect of what was going on from class to class was overpowering. Discipline went out the window, and teachers found it nearly impossible to teach anything. Schools spent additional millions for free-standing office-divider-like walls, still trying to salvage the concept, but it was futile. The distraction factor from noise alone was impossible to overcome. If one classroom watched a movie, everyone within earshot heard the movie. Kids selectively tuned out and tuned into lessons all around them.

So what eventually happened? Those who had a stake in the brilliant concept eventually retired, fled for their lives ahead of lynch mobs of angry parents, or made more money hawking other fads. But hundreds of millions more were spent building walls in buildings that weren’t designed for walls. Even today, the remaining buildings have a bizarre mix of strangely shaped and sized rooms with horribly uneven ventilation, and electrical outlets--where they have any at all-in the strangest places.

What was lost in all of those years was time. Time, to the dedicated teacher, is their most precious commodity. A single class day lost is time that can never be regained, educational opportunities lost. All of the lessons, information, intellectual growth lost to that generation of students is impossible to quantify, but it’s very real--and tragic--nonetheless. This is the hidden downside, the danger, of educational faddism.

And so we are in the throes of the latest fad, which often goes by the name of “accountability.” Yes, we’re going to make school accountable, apparently for the first time. Strange. I’ve always been under the impression that I’m accountable for my work every day, and oddly enough, so is my principal, but the state and federal governments always know better than we do, so who am I to argue? By “accountability,” I mean mandatory, high-stakes testing. If Lauren doesn’t pass her tests, she doesn’t graduate from high school. It doesn’t matter that she has, through twelve years of academic excellence demonstrated hundreds of times, earned her place as the Valedictorian of her class, if she fails one of the tests by a single point, her twelve years of exemplary academic performance mean nothing. Lauren deserves better than that. We all do.

Oddly enough, teachers like me have a problem with that kind of “accountability.” Who knows Lauren better, an educrat looking at a few test scores in the state capital, or her teachers who work with her daily and read and grade hundreds of her assignments? Who knows her academic strengths and weaknesses? Who actually cares about her, putting real thought and energy into her intellectual and personal development instead of seeing her as a politically useful bit of data?

Even if we put that bit of common sense aside for a moment, perhaps examining the tests in terms of costs and benefits will help. Who does the testing benefit? Educrats, people who live and die by data, by regulating and constraining the professional lives of teachers, yet who have little or no contact with them or with the day to day reality of the classroom. Educrats love data, for it is the mother’s milk of their jobs. It justifies their positions and gives them the power to pick winners and losers.

You might be tempted to think that these test scores benefit everyone, student, teacher, and parent, but they do not. Remember, please that this is not Lake Wobegon where all the children are above average. Such tests are written with a middling level of difficulty. If they weren’t, far too many kids would fail them, which really calls into question why we do them in the first place, particularly at such great cost. The truth is that most people are average; that’s what average is, and the tests are written for the average. What does Lauren’s score on her English test tell you, particularly compared to the 150 tests and other assignments of all kinds she’ll complete in my class? What does it tell Lauren? It tells me nothing I didn’t know by the second week of school. It cannot help you be a better parent; it cannot help her be a better student; it cannot help me be a better teacher.

Some will say that we absolutely need such data so that we can compare and identify failing schools. This is a misrepresentation. There are a great many other means of identifying such things, and they all cost a fraction of the testing fad.

Every school district in the nation has the means available to fail or succeed, and the essential element in that success is the involvement of parents and the community in holding their elected school boards accountable, truly accountable for providing the best educational opportunity possible. Tests cannot and will not do that. Merely paying attention to what is going on in the schools will, and at a tiny fraction of the cost.

But the data reveal that the students of the Smithville School District scored, on average, 4.2 points higher than the students of the Jonestown School District! So what? What that likely means is that Smithville spent far more of their school year drilling for the test than Jonestown, and while Jonestown scored lower on that particular test that day, the Jonestown kids actually had far more time to actually learn something other than how to take that particular test.

But all kids need to do to pass such tests is to be taught the state-mandated standards. Teaching to the test is not necessary! Right. Who is saying that? State education officials? The publishers of the test? I’ve talked to both of them and called them on that whopper. Let me assure you that when you call them on that particular point, they become very angry, irrational, turn an unattractive shade of red, sputter convincingly, and suddenly lose interest in taking further questions. Lauren will do well on this test because I know that I have to drill her on it, and that I must do so in very, very specific ways, many of which do not apply at all to anything else we do in class. In fact, I’ve told her, and the rest of the kids never to write as they had to to pass the test again. Bless their hearts, they do it as they’ve been drilled, and revert back to rational, effective writing thereafter.

The costs will surprise and probably disgust you. Did you know that for only the English test, we dedicate at least nine weeks of the school year--about 25% of the entire year--to passing and taking that single test, to prepare for that one day out of the year? Merely taking all of the required tests wipes out an additional week. In addition, our school has a great reputation for passing those tests, so we’re given the honor of being guinea pigs for vetting future tests for the company the state pays huge amounts of money to develop and produce the tests. That wipes out an additional week of class time, time that we could use to actually learn something, to build bigger, better brains, which is what we should all be primarily focused on doing. All of this means that Lauren’s English class will lose about 29% of its class time just to pass one test, one test whose results help us--and her--not at all. Don’t worry. I could have told you Lauren’s score on the English test within a few points before she took it. She’ll not only pass, but will be in the highest rank. But you see, I know that because I know Lauren. The educrats know only the data generated by her test.

Be thankful that Lauren isn’t in elementary school. Many of those dedicate virtually the entire year to preparing for tests. I have to spend time every year re-teaching my new high school students such elementary concepts as “noun,” “verb,” “simple sentence,” and other basics earlier generations mastered by 6th grade.

What would I have done in that time, time forever lost? We could have read and discussed at least three books, written many major assignments requiring real academic effort and higher level thinking skills, completed a variety of smaller assignments to sharpen the kid’s writing, reading and thinking skills, and in general, made significant gains in brain development and language skills. Instead, we were forced to concentrate on a single, mediocre test. And rest assured, we’ll be very successful. Virtually all of our kids will pass that test--we’ve figured out how to teach them to pass it--but they will lose so much more.

I know some people will say that not all teachers are good teachers, and that’s certainly true. But tests don’t solve that problem. Aware, professional, competent people do, and they do it most effectively and least expensively on the local level. Some will say that some school districts are bad, and that’s true too, but tests don’t solve that problem either, and they don’t solve it at exorbitant cost. Even the worst districts can be fixed if the public cares enough to, at the next election, throw out the school board that allows such disasters. Tests can’t vote, and if Lauren failed the test, her score couldn’t tell us that the district superintendent was taking vendor kickbacks, or teachers were sleeping during class time, or that the kids ran the school, or about any other impediment to learning. Only professional people can know and correct such things.

How much do such things cost? Again, Texas provides something of an answer. It has been recently discovered that Texas will be paying their test provider just under half a billion dollars over the next five years to develop and produce their new test series. That’s just under half a billon dollars over five years for one, single state. And that doesn’t count the salaries and additional expenses of the state education bureaucracy involved. I don’t know about you, but a half a billon dollars still sounds like a lot of money to me, especially in our relatively hard economic times. I’m sure the costs elsewhere are similar.

So, once again, I apologize. With what remains of the school year, I’ll do what I can to try to make up for lost time, but I’m fighting a losing battle until this fad, eventually, goes the way of all educational fads before it. I wish I could say that I could do something about this, but I’m just a teacher. What do I know about education?

Thanks, and please let me know if I can be helpful in the future.

Lauren’s English Teacher

Debt Limit Reached, Nation Fails to Explode in Violent Fireball

Unpossible. Democrats made it sound like the world would end if we didn't immediately fund their largesse.

NAACP Beclowns Itself. Again.

Update: Never blog before coffee. Story was from last year.

Still idiotic.

Because the cosmos is racist.

A graduation card sold at local stores has been pulled from shelves after a civil rights group raised concerns about the content. The group claims the card's micro-speaker plays a greeting that's racist.

It is a graduation greeting from Hallmark that says, "Hey world, we are officially putting you on notice."

Members of the Los Angeles NAACP did take notice. As characters known as "Hoops" and "Yoyo" banter on, African American leaders hear offensive language.

"And you black holes, you are so ominous. Watch your back," the card vocalizes.

"That was very demeaning to African American women. When it made reference to African American women as whores and at the end, it says 'watch your back,'" said Leon Jenkins of the Los Angeles NAACP.

When Hallmark was reached by phone, they said the card is all a misunderstanding. The card's theme is the solar system and emphasizes the power of the grad to take over the universe, even energy-absorbing black holes.

The card company says the card speaks about the power the grad will wield.

"The intent here is to say that this graduate is not afraid of anything," explained Hallmark spokesman Steve Doyal.

But that's not what some people heard.

"You hear the 'r' in there. 'Whores,' not, 'holes.' The 'r' is in there," said Minnie Hatley of the Los Angeles NAACP.

Some have argued that NAACP outlived its usefulness after the victories of the Civil Rights era, and (literally) cartoonish manufactured outrage such as the protesting of a graduation card referring to the solar system only reinforces those inclined to buy that argument.

Andrew Brietbart and the Tea Party haven't yet been blamed for the Hallmark card, but it's early in the news cycle. Give it time.

In the meantime, I can hardly to wait to see what the NAACP has to say about Uranus.

The Second Amendment and Self Defense Post Heller and McDonald

The good folks at Pajamas Media, who are kind enough to publish our work from time to time, have posted an article I wrote on the fate of the Second Amendment and self defense post-Heller and McDonald. The battle for liberty is far from over, and the near-term fate of the Second Amendment may well be one of the most obvious indicators of the loss of individual freedom. I suspect you’ll find it interesting. Go here.

The Erik Scott Case, Update 11.2: Patterns and Process

Since Update 11 on April 17, there have been a number of interesting developments. This update will deal primarily with the continuing saga of Officer Thomas Mendiola, the case of Officer Derek Colling, issues relating to the new inquest procedure and additional information on the National Association of Police Organizations--NAPO-- and its bestowing of undeserved hero status on two of the officers who shot Erik Scott. First, links relating to the matters discussed in this update:

For Update 10 (02-06-11), relating to the arrest and suspension of Officer Mendiola for giving a firearm to a felon, go here.

For Update 10.2 (03-27-11) relating to the unprovoked assault and brutal beating of a citizen by Metro officer Derek Colling, go here.

For Update 10.3 (04-02-11) relating to the latest developments in the Clark County inquest procedures, go here.

For Update 11 (04-17-11) relating to the awarding of “Honorable Mention TOP COP” status to Officers Mosher and Stark by the NAPO, go here.

For an April 26 Las Vegas Review-Journal update on the Colling/Crooks beating story, go here.

For the YouTube video--shot by Crooks’ videocamera-- of the beating, go here.

For a May 13 Las Vegas Sun update on Mendiola’s arrest, go here.

For a PDF of the criminal complaint in the Mendiola case, go here.

For a May 13 Lav Vegas Review-Journal update on the Mendiola case, go here.

For a My News 3 Update on the Inquest procedures, go here.

For a brief story relating to officer shootings in Milwaukee, WI, go here.

For a Las Vegas Tribune editorial on Metro corruption, go here.

THE COLLING BEATING:

In Update 10.2 (03-27-11), I detailed the case of Officer Derek Colling who was charged by Las Vegas resident and videographer Mitchell Crooks of beating him in an unprovoked attack on March 20. In that update, I concluded that Colling, who initially claimed that he was arresting Crooks for trespassing, but eventually charged him only with battery on a police officer, made a false arrest, an arrest attended by a brutal beating of Crooks who was standing on his own property while videotaping what to this day appears to be an unremarkable and apparently legitimate police action in his neighborhood. While it was not possible then to know exactly what happened, it appeared that Crooks’ version of events had the ring of truth and Colling’s did not. What did happen was an egregious case of “contempt of cop.”

“Contempt of cop” is a play on words of the common legal term “contempt of court.” The latter refers to a judge holding someone responsible for conduct--usually in the courtroom--that is disrespectful or disruptive, that reflects blatant contempt for the law, the judge and his lawful authority. The former is similar. It refers to a cop’s reaction to the same kind of behavior by a citizen in their presence. In the best sense of the term, an officer’s attention will be attracted by someone who goes out of their way to irrationally and unnecessarily antagonize a police officer in a public setting. In such circumstances, it would be foolish for a police officer to allow that person to go unpunished lest their behavior encourage others to insult, even attack other officers.

For professionals, it’s not a matter of personal feelings. Professional officers don’t take things personally, they know that they act on authority granted them by the people and that when someone foolishly shows contempt for them, they are actually showing contempt for the law, for those who made the law and those who give them the authority to make and enforce it, the people. Indeed, people have a right to behave stupidly, and to express foolish opinions, but those rights are not unlimited. In most legitimate cases of contempt of cop, people are legitimately arrested for disturbing the peace, and usually only after the officer involved has given them more than sufficient chances to avoid being arrested. The officer’s peers may joke about contempt of cop thereafter, but professionals all know that what they’re actually saying is that the person who was arrested more than deserved it and that the arrest was completely legitimate. In my police career, I found myself in that situation on several occasions.

Contempt of cop also applies to the worst instincts some police officers develop. In those cases, officers become “badge-heavy,” they begin to take matters personally. They become hypersensitive to any insult, real or imagined. They don’t consider the elements of the law, they take offense, act first and make up the rest later. Such officers are unpredictable and dangerous, not only to the public, but to their fellow officers who know that the bad will of the public is cumulative. Abuse the citizenry enough, and the officers who suffer for it--and some will suffer--will often be professionals, men and women of good will undeserving of their fates.

The case of Metro Officer Derek Colling appears to be such a case. The video shows a police officer who approached Mitchell Crooks, demanding that he stop videotaping him. Crooks, politely, calling Colling “Sir,” declined. Without provocation and cause, Colling attacked Crooks, knocking him and his expensive camera to the ground and repeatedly hitting and kicking him. One kick, likely the kick that broke Crook’s nose, is at least partially visible in the video, a video made from the viewpoint of the camera, on its side on the ground, not framing the beating but clearly recording the audio of all that occurred.

Crook’s screams of surprise and pain, his calls for help, are clear and disturbing. More disturbing are the calculated, crude and ugly comments of Colling who repeatedly threatens Crooks, threatening to beat him again even though Crooks is handcuffed, making fun of his pain and repeatedly calling out “quit resisting,” as he pummels a prostrate, injured and unresisting Crooks.

The tape reveals an officer who is cynically calling “quit resisting” because he knows there are witnesses, including two suspects in the back of his car (though they have not been identified and reports are that they were not actually arrested or booked). Honest officers might do this in an earnest attempt to encourage someone who is actually resisting to stop so that they can use only the minimum force necessary to arrest them. Officers like Colling do it to try to cover themselves as they, without cause and justification, brutalize an innocent citizen.

The District Attorney’s office has dropped all charges against Crooks, who has filed a lawsuit. Sheriff Doug Gillespie has declined to comment, and amazingly, Officer Collling remains on duty. David Otto, Crooks’ attorney said:

"Officer Colling was aggravated that a citizen should have the audacity to video tape, him -- a Las Vegas Metropolitan Patrol Officer,'' Otto wrote. "Officer Colling decided to use the fear and terror of his physical ability to beat Mr. Crooks into submission -- to teach Mr. Crooks and, by example, all citizens and residents of the Las Vegas Valley."

Quite so. Colling’s version of the incident appears to be, to put it kindly, fanciful.

As I noted in Update 10.2, this case and the Scott case are related in many ways. Any competent investigator looks for similarities, patterns that help them find the truth. When I began investigating and writing about the Scott case, I knew nothing at all about Metro or its reputation. I briefly visited Las Vegas nearly three decades ago, but had no real connection to it or anyone involved in the case. I was, in short, more than willing to give the officers involved and Metro the benefit of the doubt. I have learned that they don’t deserve it. The similarities in both cases illustrate why:

(1) In both cases, officers acted without justification and were not in control of themselves or of the situation.

(2) In both cases, an officer involved had previously shot two citizens. As I’ve noted in prior updates, it is rare for any officer to have killed anyone an an entire career, let alone two people. In the cases of Officers Colling and Mosher, they killed three between them (one shot by Mosher lived) within a span of only about five years. With the Scott case, Mosher had shot three and killed two. In normal, professional law enforcement agencies, this would be unheard of and a cause for real alarm and concern.

An illustrative example may be found in the link to a Milwaukee police shooting. In that case, a man with a knife charged two officers. One of the officers fired, striking him several times, yet he still held the knife, dropping it only after the officer’s continuing commands to disarm. The man was treated and released from the hospital the following day. The article explains a state of police affairs that would appear to be utterly foreign to Metro:

“The use of force is "a rare event" for Milwaukee police officers, according to a newly released 2010 report of the Fire and Police Commission.
The report states there were 511 cases of use of force against people last year out of 38,641 arrests [1.3%].”

I’ve no idea of Metro’s statistics in this regard, but I suspect they’d be larger. I’ve little doubt that the number of Metro officers who have shot and/or killed citizens, even multiple citizens, would be far out of proportion to virtually any other police department of similar size. I know that in some ways, Las Vegas is unique, but it would certainly be interesting to see reliable figures.

(3) In each case, supervisors were involved and had the opportunity, then and there, to hold officers who made serious mistakes accountable, to stop a chain of events that would only make matters worse, but not only did nothing to prevent things from getting further out of hand, but may have engaged in a continuing coverup of police wrongdoing.

In the Colling case, for example, it must have been clear to any rational supervisor that Colling had no probable cause for arrest, and certainly no justification for his brutal beating of Crooks. The trumped up trespassing charge was dropped at the scene and Crooks was charged with assaulting Colling in perhaps one of the worst and most ironic cases of projection extant. In this case and the Scott case, the first line supervisor had the opportunity to stop improper and illegal actions then and there and did not take it. This seems all too common with Metro.

(4) In each case, common professional procedures and practices were abandoned or ignored, and dangerous and glaring mistakes that would cause officers in professional agencies to be immediately investigated, disciplined and potentially fired were overlooked, if they were recognized at all.

(5) In both cases, the officers involved were apparently either incredibly incompetent, incredibly corrupt or both and enjoyed what appears to be, at the very least, the support of their superiors. Consider that all of the officers involved (with the exception of Mendiola) are still on duty, and two have been cited as national examples of police excellence (more on this shortly).

If these were the only two cases in recent memory of similarly unprofessional behavior, they could easily be explained away as aberrations. I do not for a moment suggest that every Metro officer is corrupt or incompetent or that they engage in incompetence and corruption in all, or in even most, of their official actions. But as I’ve noted in past updates, that is not necessary for a police agency to gain a reputation for corruption and incompetence, a reputation that existed long before the Erik Scott shooting on July 10, 2010, long before I posted my first article on the case on September 21, 2010, and a reputation that continues and has arguably worsened since.

What this case demonstrates above all is a pattern of institutional neglect and corruption. Metro appears to be an organization that not only hires questionable officers, but supports and protects them in actions that would at the very least result in severe discipline in professional agencies, and most likely would result in firing. Officers like Colling do not just suddenly explode one day after years of highly professional conduct. Surely his peers and supervisors knew--and know--his potential for irrational violence so amply demonstrated in the Crooks case? It would be instructive indeed to know Officer Colling’s entire history with Metro. Unfortunately, violent incidents, incidents of unprofessional, abusive behavior, would be unlikely to be included in official records. Colling’s criminal attack on Crooks is merely one of far too many examples of abusive, unprofessional, dangerous and even deadly behavior by Metro officers.

We will continue to follow this case and report on its eventual disposition. It may be instructive to take the link to the Las Vegas Tribune editorial relating to Metro’s management and reputation. Metro’s reputation is well known and is becoming more so.

THE NAPO AND QUESTIONABLE HEROISM:

As I noted in Update 11, Officers Mosher and Stark were awarded honorable mentions in the annual NAPO TOP COP program. This occurred because the head of the Metro police union, Chris Collins, is the Sgt. At Arms of that organization, and recommended them for that honor, obviously taking care to see that it was accomplished. And for what were they awarded this distinction? The shooting of Erik Scott.

Collins arrogantly announced the award at a legislative hearing on a bill that would have allowed the Clark County DA or Coroner, and exclusively the Clark County DA or Coroner (in the entire state), to decide whether to hold an inquest in any police shooting. Collins miscalculated. There is substantial evidence to suggest that his ill-conceived action doomed the bill then and there, and has ensured that it has no hope in the future. I’ve come to understand that this kind of arrogant disdain for the public is common with the PPA and with Mr. Collins, and I’ve documented it in past updates.

I sent the following e-mail to the NAPO on April 17:

“Sirs:

Good day.  I recently learned that your organization awarded an honorable mention to two Las Vegas Metro officers, Joshua Stark and William Mosher, for their part in the shooting death of Erik Scott in July of 2010.  It appears that your Sergeant-at-Arms, Chris Collins, made the nomination that resulted in that award.  

I'd like to bring to your attention information that might cause you to reconsider that choice, and hope that you might consider it seriously.  There is very good reason to believe that their part in the incident for which they are being honored is not worthy of that honor, not the least of which is that it is currently under litigation.  

May I suggest that you visit this article:  http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/#314865

It is part of an archive of my writings on this case, which should raise reasonable suspicion about what actually happened.  Did you know, for example, that one of the three officers who shot and killed Erik Scott was, only months later, arrested for giving a firearm to a felon?  Did you know that Off. Mosher, prior to the Scott shooting, had been involved, in a short time, in two shootings, one resulting in the death of a citizen and one a wounding?

As a veteran of nearly two decades of police service, I urge you to carefully consider this situation.  I suspect that you'll find, as have I, that at the very least, it would be unwise to pronounce these officers heroic, unwise and damaging to the reputation of your organization.  There are more than enough examples of undisputed, unblemished police heroism out there.”

I suspect that it will not be a surprise to readers to learn that the NAPO has not responded and that as of the posting of this article, Officers Mosher and Stark are yet listed as honorees on the NAPO website. As I mentioned in my e-mail, this “honor” would seem to be, at the very least, premature. That the NAPO would issue such an honor under these conditions does not speak well of its integrity and dedication to recognizing and rewarding actual heroism and excellence.

THE CONTINUING TROUBLES OF THOMAS MENDIOLA:

Having been suspended from duty for some time, Officer Mendiola was formally indicted on May 13. The affidavit supporting the indictment indicates that Mendiola admitted knowingly giving a firearm to a man he knew to be a felon--prohibited from gun ownership--and that he actually discussed his felon status with the man who acknowledged that he was a felon. Mendiola will likely be arraigned May 26.

As I noted in Update 10, this situation presents many interesting issues. Normally, it would be expected that any officer in Mendiola’s situation--facing a civil action that has the potential to shake Metro to its core--would enjoy a significant degree of protection, protection that is routinely afforded Metro officers--some 200 in the last decade alone--who kill citizens. That the offense with which he has been charged came to light during an undercover investigation is likewise interesting and unusual.

If it was Metro’s intention to protect Mendiola, there would have been no reason that his actions had to be made public. Metro is well practiced at keeping such things under wraps, after all. That they were made public would seem to indicate that Metro made a conscious decision to abandon Mendiola. The question is why?

Did Metro come to believe that Mendiola might be willing to stray from the official version of events in the Scott case? Did more subtle means of getting him back on the reservation fail? Was his arrest a more obvious attempt to force him back into the fold, and if we take for granted that it did not have the desired effect, was his actual indictment yet another, more forceful attempt to obtain the desired result, the desired testimony? Or does Metro intend to cut him loose entirely?

This would seem an unwise thing to do as Mendiola might cause Metro considerable damage. On the other hand, it is known that he was washed out of the Metro Police Academy on his first try and allowed a second chance. The circumstances of this remain unknown, but Metro might well use this--as well as any number of other negative allegations--to discredit any testimony Mendiola might potentially give. They would have to admit some degree of error in hiring and retaining Mendiola, but to some, that might seem to be an honest admission and an attempt to clean up Metro, starting with one of its least experienced and lowest ranking members. But its best weapon would be the ability to paint Mendiola as a disgruntled, disgraced cop, a cop who is actually a convicted felon. After all, who is a jury going to believe, two cops awarded national honors for their “heroism” or a convicted felon, screw-up ex-cop with an ax to grind? Of course, when it’s time for depositions or testimony, Thomas Mendiola might just become, should we say, hard to find. Mr. Mendiola might wish to consider his options with some care and with some rapidity.

It is, of course, always possible that in this case, Metro is behaving properly and enforcing the law by the book. As I earlier mentioned, every Metro officer is certainly not corrupt and everything Metro does is likewise not corrupt. However, there is more than enough precedence for corrupt practice in Metro history, and certainly in its present operations.

To the degree that one might have pity in their heart for the Metro officers involved in the Scott case, Thomas Mendiola might end up to be deserving of some small portion. Still, his troubles seem to be largely of his own making.

THE CONTINUING INQUEST SAGA:

Update 10.3 outlines the latest on the inquest saga. However, it has been reported that on May 9, a pre-inquest meeting was held with the representatives of the family of Benjamin Bowman, killed by Metro officers in November, 2010. This is apparently one of two scheduled meetings (under the new inquest rules adopted in January) during which families are afforded some degree of discovery of the evidence. The Bowman case is the first to be initiated under the new rules.

Regular readers will recall that Metro officers, through Chris Collins, their PPA chief, have explicitly stated that they will not cooperate with inquests, will not testify, and/or will take the 5th. The inquest process in the Bowman case has not yet reached that point, but should the involved officers refuse to testify or properly cooperate, it will indicate clearly that Metro is at war with the public, and that Las Vegas police officers will accept no accountability to the public for their actions, particularly when those actions result in the deaths of citizens.

At the moment, Sheriff Gillespie and DA Roger seem to have no intention of demanding that Metro officers do their jobs and testify about their official actions as officers do routinely every day across the nation. Update 10.3 explains in substantial detail why this is a very serious matter indeed.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

As I mentioned earlier, the Colling case is just one of a great many similar cases in Las Vegas. If I wished, I could write about such cases, easily, on a weekly--indeed, a more frequent--basis. The police deserve the support and appreciation of the public, but only if they take daily pains to make it clear that they serve the public. Metro apparently does quite the opposite. If, following the Erik Scott shooting, no similar cases occurred, if the kinds of bizarre, unprofessional incidents that have become routine in Las Vegas had not come to light, I would likely still have considered the Scott case to be outrageous, a bad shoot, but would have thought it to be the exception rather than the rule, and my coverage of the case would surely have taken a very different, and far less voluminous, turn. As one who knows how a police organization should--must--work and relate to the citizenry, I can say without equivocation, I would never live in or visit Las Vegas. It would be impossible for me to trust its police.

Even those who believe the Scott case to be justified--and some, with good will and without, certainly do--must surely be concerned by the patterns I’ve outlined in these many pages. If not, it would seem that they share the mindset of that minority of Metro cops who are apparently not professional, who are seemingly corrupt, and who have painted the entire organization in very unflattering colors indeed. For it is not, you see, the big offenses that begin and ensure continuing, growing corruption, but the small things, the hundreds of cut corners, minor thefts, usurpations of legal authority, petty abuses, that have a cumulative effect, a deadening, numbing effect, and that not only allow, but ensure greater and greater corruption, corruption that, in a life-and-death business, inevitably leads to the deaths of innocents.

Lord Action was right: Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Corruption, however, is not omnipotent. It can be defeated, and corrupt organizations can be remade. The Erik Scott case might serve as a turning point, an opportunity for individual and organizational redemption. But that will ultimately be up to the citizens of Las Vegas, the citizens who recently re-elected Doug Gillespie to run Metro.

Rhetorical Drilling For Votes

At Yahoo News (here) we learn:

“Amid growing public unhappiness over gas prices, President Barack Obama is directing his administration to ramp up U.S. oil production by extending existing leases in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska's coast and holding more frequent lease sales in a federal petroleum reserve in Alaska. But the moves won't calm spiraling prices at the pump any time soon.”

Isn’t that wonderful? Mr. Obama has finally seen the light and is actually taking steps that might actually reduce energy prices for Americans! Hold on there buckaroos. What is far more likely is that he is feeling the heat and is taking rhetorical steps only. There is immediate and long term evidence that supports this contention. From the good folks at Hot Air (here), we discover a bit more clarity:

“His announcement followed passage in the Republican-controlled House of three bills--including two this week--that would expand and speed up offshore oil and gas drilling...The White House had announced its opposition to all three bills, which are unlikely to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate, saying the measures would undercut safety reviews and open environmentally sensitive areas to new drilling...But Obama is adopting some of the bills’ provisions.”

The immediate reality of what looks like a real concession to reality, common sense and lower gas prices is that Mr. Obama is talking about nothing more than approving extension for existing leases, and will--possibly--finally allow a lease sale for oil production in the Gulf of Mexico that was supposed to take place last year. This is nothing more than a piecemeal, tiny step toward eventually getting back up to past production levels, not opening additional, new avenues of production.

There is every reason to believe that this is nothing more than a cynical attempt at conning the American public with slippery rhetoric. For what he seems to give with his right hand, he takes away with his left:

“Obama on Saturday also reiterated his call on Democrats and Republicans to vote to eliminate $4.4 billion in taxpayer subsidies to oil and gas companies. Industry advocates, including most Republicans in Congress, have argued that doing away with the tax breaks will raise companies' cost of doing business, crimp their investment in exploration and production and lead to higher gas prices.”

Let’s not forget that what Mr. Obama has said is that he is “directing his administration,” to do something. He did not specify how or when. This is not a niggling concern. Mr. Obama has established a pattern of saying a very great deal but doing very little. He is likely making this statement for its potential political effect while simultaneously winking at those in his administration who will have to carry it out. Six months from now, I suspect that we’ll see virtually no movement toward actually authorizing oil production. Mr. Obama’s multitude of bureaucrats will see to that.

Remember too Mr. Obama’s--and the Democrat’s--frequent claims that drilling for oil is futile because it would take years for it to yield any benefits at the gas pumps. Of course, had they not taken that approach in 2008, we might very well be experiencing much lower costs at the gas pumps today. Two years will pass very quickly and we will have no less need of affordable energy in two years than we do now. Consider too that Democrat claims of years and years before benefits are manifested are almost certainly false; it would almost certainly take substantially less time than they claim.

And even if Obamian czars and their functionaries began issuing new leases and permits today, leases and permits that would open up the new, vast fields about which we know, in good faith and with great speed and efficiency, Mr. Obama knows that a multitude of environmental groups--including James Hansen of NASA--will tie up any increased production in red tape and lawsuits far into the future. Mr. Obama won’t even have to wink at them. They’ll do it anyway, and as long as Democrats control the Senate, any attempt to interfere with harassing and frivolous environmentalist lawsuits will be dead on arrival.

As with virtually everything Mr. Obama has said and done, rhetoric read from his teleprompter is cheap and easy. Actually doing anything positive for the American people, anything that won’t bankrupt the nation, anything that would actually benefit America and Americans, is quite another story. We have a president who claims to be all about jobs, yet one might be tempted to think that virtually everything he does is calculated to destroy jobs in the American oil and gas industries. Brazil, that’s another story...

Corps of Engineers to Flood Productive Farmland to Save Fetid Cesspool

Here's an idea: Let's build a city below sea level—a city that keeps sinking lower every minute, at that—and surround it on three sides by one of the mightiest rivers in the world, a massive lake, and the Gulf of Mexico. Then we'll fill it with a heart-rending mix of poverty and corruption, and then make it most famous for wanton debauchery, inhumanity, and greed.

Then, when we've created about the most depraved place possible in a goelogically untenable position, we'll use the political influence of that hole in the swamp to make sure people and property that are productive are destroyed by the whims of those with a stake in the corruption.

That about sums it up.

Of course, one could note that if the Corps hadn't created the current system of levees and canals, nature itself would have been able to distribute the flood waters as God intended to make fertile cropland and a home for man and beast alike. Modern man, unfortunately, finds the idea of letting the Mississippi act the way a river is supposed to act in its own delta to be far too uncivilized, even as they destroy the delta itself and all who reside there in the process.

Officer in Erik Scott Shooting Indicted for Arming a Felon

But hey, there's nothing wrong with the Las Vegas PD:

A Las Vegas police officer involved in a fatal shooting outside the Summerlin Costco last year has been indicted on a felony weapons charge in a separate incident.

The indictment returned Friday charges officer Thomas Mendiola with disposal of a firearm to a prohibited person. He is accused of giving a handgun to a two-time felon.

Mendiola, 23, an employee of the Metropolitan Police Department since March 2009, has been relieved of his patrol duties at the Convention Center Area Command .

If convicted, Mendiola faces 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. I'll be interested to see what kind of deal Vegas authorities reach with him so that he stays quiet about what he knows about the police cover-up of the Scott killing.

The Horror Of Public Sector Unemployment?

Mr. Obama appeared at a CBS News-sponsored “town hall” at the Newseum in Washington DC on May 12 (CBS story here). Unsurprisingly, jobs was a major focus of the event as Mr. Obama is continuing his fiction of being all about jobs during a “jobless recovery” for which he is directly responsible. Mr. Obama said:

"The reason the unemployment rate is still as high as it is, in part, is because there have been huge layoffs of government workers at the federal level, at the state level, at the local level...Teachers, police officers, firefighters, social workers-- they have really taken it in the chin over the last several months. And so, what we're trying to do is to see if we can stabilize the budget."

I have long marveled at Mr. Obama, according to his sycophants and the media (is there any difference?), the most intelligent man to ever occupy the Oval Office. Yet there exists virtually no tangible evidence or accomplishment to support that contention. He graduated from Harvard Law School and was President of the Harvard Law Review, yet wrote not a single scholarly legal article. He is the supposed author of two (?!) autobiographies before reaching the age of 50, yet there is compelling evidence that he didn’t write either. He served in the Illinois and U.S. Senates, yet there is no record of any significant legislative accomplishment. His grades and other college records have apparently been sealed in a vault in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings or shot into space.

What I suppose I’m saying is I don’t get it. Any other person renowned for intellect can invariably point to a long line of educational and work accomplishments, mileposts on the road to the attainment of a high level of acumen and experience. For such people, there are legions of friends and colleagues spanning decades who can produce concrete examples of their brilliance and accomplishment. Yet Barack Obama, the President of the United States remains an intellectual cypher, his intellect apparent only to his supporters and the Lamestream media (again, I repeat myself), apparently for his ability to read a teleprompter with some small degree of alacrity.

What I find particularly amazing is not only his tendency to spout glaring gaffes, but his propensity to regularly spout blatant lies, lies so obviously false to the reasonably well informed, and so easily disproved, as to make one wonder if he really did lie so openly and unashamedly. Among Mr. Obama’s more famous gaffes (go here for more):

(1) His campaign contention that “I’ve been in 57 states--I think one left to go.”

(2) His Freudian slip: “You’re absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith.”

(3) His comment about a Navy corpse-man.

(4) His apparently belief in the non-existent “Austrian” language.

(5) “The Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries.”

(6) “Let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s...”

(7) “On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes--and I see many of them in the audience here today...”

(8) “In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died...” (12 actually died).

(9) “The reforms we seek would bring greater competition choice, savings and inefficiencies to our health care system.”

(10) His recent suggestion that Texas has always been Republican. This would have been a substantial surprise to LBJ, Ann Richards and many other Democrat Texas leaders.

It is, however, his lies that are most disturbing. The most recent example is his quote about the “ huge layoffs of government workers at the federal level, at the state level, at the local level.” As Jim Geraghty of National Review Online (here) notes, this is an amazing, not even remotely correct, absolute lie. The facts are simple and easy to find: We are eight million jobs below the most recent peak private sector employment level, and not only has federal, state and local public sector employment not declined, it has actually increased. So Mr. Obama is not slightly wrong, he’s not merely mistaken, he has not misread or misquoted, he has propounded a bald-faced lie.

Is Mr. Obama so used to saying anything that he finds convenient on any occasion, secure in the knowledge that the press will never call him on it (about how many of the gaffes were you aware?) that he takes no pains to be accurate? In other words, is he simply careless? Is he knowingly and cynically lying in the sure knowledge that the press will not only fail to expose his mendacity but will surely cover for it if necessary? Does he hold the public in such low regard that he believes he can say anything he wants because they’ll believe it? Or is he so narcissistic, so delusional that he actually feels that anything he says is true simply because he says it? Which option would be more disturbing and more destructive to America?

One final suggestion: Mr. Obama actually believes what he said. He actually believes that despite his successful, Herculean efforts to dramatically expand the roster of government employees, their numbers have been, instead, dramatically declining. If so, this speaks to a delusional mind, a mind disengaged from economic reality, a mind unable to understand the basics of economics. It speaks of a man who is utterly incapable, intellectually or philosophically, to do anything other than to spend us into oblivion.

Should we expect less--or more--from a man who sees leading from behind as a virtue? To honorable Americans, lying is a sign of weak, defective character. To Mr. Obama and the press, it would seem to be a personal and political necessity. More’s the pity for us all.

Unwelcome Ad-ditions

Readers will have noticed, I’m sure, that the comments sections of our posts are occasionally infected with spammish advertising. We do not encourage or accept this kind of unbidden advertising and remove it as soon as we reasonably can. We’re sure that you don’t appreciate it either and ask your help in telling those who spam us that it is unappreciated by not accessing the links they provide.

Can’t we block it? Unfortunately, not really. As you may have noticed, such spammers use randomly generated URLS and titles that tend to defeat any blocks we erect. Install a block with the information they’ve used in the past and they’ll be back the following day with another randomly generated spam attack.

We’ll continue to remove them as quickly as we can, but in the meantime, know that we don’t like them any more than you do, and please bear with us. Thanks!

Americans Idled

The Obama Administration is continuing its "harsh reality show" known as the US economy, and the President himself has stepped off the golf course and campaign trail long enough to float the absurd claim that layoffs of government workers is to blame for unemployment.

Jim Geraghty calls him on his lie:

CBS' Mark Knoller, covering a town hall on the economy with the president this morning, reports: "President Obama blames high unemployment rate on 'huge layoffs of government workers' at federal, state and local levels."

This is completely wrong. Extremely and mind-bogglingly wrong. Epically wrong.

Hit the link for the details, which confirms the private sector is shedding jobs under Obama, while the government employment is actually growing at every level.

Every word a lie. Including "and" and "the."

Professional Idiot Ron Paul Would Not Have Authorized Bin Laden Mission

Proving yet again why this messiah to the dim and half-baked is simply unfit for the job he wants.

Ron Paul says he would not have authorized the mission that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, and that President Barack Obama should have worked with the Pakistani government instead of authorizing a raid.

"I think things could have been done somewhat differently," Paul said this week. "I would suggest the way they got Khalid [Sheikh] Mohammed. We went and cooperated with Pakistan. They arrested him, actually, and turned him over to us, and he's been in prison. Why can't we work with the government?"

Asked by WHO Radio's Simon Conway whether he would have given the go-ahead to kill bin Laden if it meant entering another country, Paul shot back that it "absolutely was not necessary."

"I don't think it was necessary, no. It absolutely was not necessary," Paul said during his Tuesday comments. "I think respect for the rule of law and world law and international law. What if he'd been in a hotel in London? We wanted to keep it secret, so would we have sent the airplane, you know the helicopters into London, because they were afraid the information would get out?"

The correct answer is damn right you send the Blackhawks into London, and fire on Britain's throngs of disloyal Bin Laden supporters if necessary.

What Ron Paul doesn't get—and will never get—is that it is easy to be an ideologue when you don't have any real responsibilities. Obama is being exposed to this reality the hard way, which is why he's been dragged kicking and screaming into many of the (correct) foreign policy and military decisions undertaken by his predecessors, despite his unrealistic campaign promises.

Coming Soon To A Blog Near You...

Beginning Tuesday, May 17, and hopefully continuing every Tuesday thereafter, I’ll be posting a new addition to the blog, tentatively titled “Letter From the Teacher.” Regular readers know that my day job is teaching high school English. Yes, I am a defender of the mother tongue. Yesterday I could not spell English teacher and today I are one!

Few people would think that they know more than a doctor or even a plumber or electrician about their business, yet everyone, it seems, knows just what is wrong with education and just how to fix it. I suspect that this is because most Americans had 12 years of experience in the public schools and that familiarity breeds a certain amount of comfort, for the truth is, most Americans were--and are--well served by their schools. Yet many, when confronted with headlines that scream that American schools are horrible failures, tend to reflexively agree. It’s rather like congressmen: many Americans think they’re all crooks and incompetents, except for their Congressman.

In the coming weeks, I’ll discuss and hopefully provide some thoughtful commentary on many educational issues, such as:

Why most of what you hear in the media about America’s schools is wrong.

Why mandatory high-stakes testing is not only harmful to children, but insanely expensive and wasteful.

What a teacher’s real job is and why it’s irrational to believe that they can be held fully accountable for student performance on tests.

What political correctness is doing to education (it’s not good).

Why prayer has never been removed from the schools, and can’t be.

Who is really running our schools and their mindsets.

How sports do less--and more--than you would expect in our schools.

Why good administrators can fire bad teachers while upholding everyone’s rights, and why bad administrator’s can’t and won’t.

Why public schools really are a good idea.

I’ll look forward to seeing you on Tuesdays, and as always, to your comments.

Quick Takes, May 12, 2011

ITEM: Mr. Obama has now refused to release post-mortem photos of Osama Bin Ladin, worried about how Muslims will react. May I be so bold as to suggest that one of the reasons we continue to have to fight a war for the future of civilization is that our leader from behind, our commander-in-chief from the rear, doesn’t understand that the way to win a war is to make our enemies worried--very, very worried--about what we think about their actions, not the opposite. With such fundamental errors is the future lost. You don’t like what we say or do, Mr. Jihadist? Well, let me introduce you to Mr. Hellfire missile! Perhaps we’ll invite a few of the SEALs over to have a little chat with you!

ITEM: It’s Baaaacckk! Department: From Fox News (here) comes the news of Mr. Obama’s speech in El Paso on May 10. The topic? Immigration reform, of course. Mr. Obama was, as usual, vague, pushing only the failed DREAM Act. Republicans were not impressed. Speaker of the House Boehner (R-Ohio) noted that the Congress has no plans to take up immigration issues and that if Mr. Obama was serious, he should have contacted Mr. Boehner (he hasn’t). Of course, one of Mr. Obama’s main themes was the immediate need for “reform.” Translation: Doing whatever Mr. Obama wants. Sure, why not? I mean, what could go wrong?

ITEM: Also from Fox (here) comes the news that the Texas House has passed a bill that would empower police officers in “sanctuary cities” to question detained suspects about their immigration status whether their bosses like it or not. It is expected to pass the Senate and be signed by Governor Rick Perry. The usual suspects erected the usual racial straw men. Think about it: Being in the country illegally is a violation of the law. Police officers are charged with investigating violations of the law. Hmm. Seems simple enough to me...

ITEM: Have you ever heard of the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard? No? It’s a 3” lizard that lives in Texas and New Mexico. The Center For Biological Diversity wants it placed on the endangered species list. The immediate effect would be to shut down at least 1000 drilling locations in the Permian Basin of Texas, one of America’s most productive oil and natural gas fields. This, gentle readers, is political cover for Mr. Obama who can claim to be all about increasing oil production, but whose bureaucrats throughout the government will do all that they can to obstruct development and production. And should they fail, environmental groups will use the all-too-willing courts to further obstruct. Only a tiny fraction of the species that have existed on this planet are still alive, and virtually all of those became extinct through the processes of--gasp!--nature, long before the dawn of Man. Go here for the story, but take your blood pressure medication first.

ITEM: He WHAT?! Department: From Hot Air (here) we learn that rabid environmentalist Dr. James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Center is behind a lawsuit that is using teenagers as a front to sue the Federal Government for failing to protect the atmosphere. This is no doubt a part of a recent push by such environmental luminaries as self-described Communist Van Jones to give nature “human rights,” so that enviros can sue on nature’s behalf. What’s that? What the hell is a NASA honcho doing playing environmentalist on NASA time? Now now, don’t be so intolerant! His boss, NASA Head Charles Bolden thinks NASA’s main mission is to make Muslims feel good about the scientific accomplishments of long- dead ancestors. Why shouldn’t NASA underlings play environmentalist? What’s that? Who is handling space exploration? Hahahahahahaaaaaaa! You must be a Republican!

ITEM: They WHAT?! Department: From the Guardian (here) we learn of a report by British Secretary of State For The Environment Caroline Spelman that concludes that unless we utterly bankrupt the civilized world to prevent global warming, Wi-fi internet access and other means of communication will be obliterated by global warming. And the Brits used to think that Americans were slightly quaint and daft.

ITEM: Aw! Isn’t that Nice? Department: Our good friends in the war on terror, Pakistan, are now threatening to show the remaining fragments of the helicopter we destroyed in the raid on Bin Laden to their best pals, the Chinese. You know, the superpower of supermen who have to steal their technological advancements from lesser beings? Go here for the story. Remind me again why we’re giving these people billions? Remind me why we owe the farm to china?

ITEM: We Are Own Your Cell Phonz! Department: Your federal government at work, gentle readers. That’s right! In the near future, the Federal government will mandate that all new cell phones come installed with government chips that will enable to the feds to send you “emergency” messages at will. And the best part is that you won’t be able to stop them, particularly “presidential messages,” though they’re not saying just what such “presidential messages” will be. Surely Mr. Obama would never misuse such a system for political purposes? Surely such a thing has never crossed his mind. Go here for the story. Orwell didn’t go nearly far enough.

ITEM: So Mr. Obama won’t release death photos of Osama Bin Laden for all the usual, touchy-feely, we’re better than that reasons? Hmm. Recall, please, how liberals salivated over Abu Graib porn and could not fling that into the far reaches of the Internet fast enough. They didn’t seem to worry about inflaming the perpetually outraged and ready to take offense Muslim world then. One might be tempted to think that our liberal friends actually like to harm America, but won’t lift a finger to demonstrate American capability and superiority. And now we learn from our good friends at Hot Air (here) that Mr. Obama is making the Bin Laden photos available for viewing by our congresspersons. Isn’t that special! Oh well. I’m sure that 7th century homicidal barbarians will entirely change their world view in recognition of Mr. Obama’s cultural sensitivity. Isn’t that what smart diplomacy is all about?

ITEM: Transparency for Me But not for Thee Department: Another milestone from the most transparent administration in history is served up by Hot Air (here). Yes, Mr. Obama is about to sign an executive order that would force any company doing business with the government to fully disclose all political donations for the past two years, including contributions of individual officers of those companies. Even for a man whose first inclination seems to be to make ethically corrupt power grabs whenever the temperature changes, this is absolutely amazing. It is hard to imagine a more blatant attempt at political intimidation and dim-witted thuggery. Read the story, but lock up the dog. You’ll want to kick something. For the Analogy-Challenged: NO, I am not actually advocating dog-kicking. Kicking the nether regions of certain politicians, absolutely (figuratively, of course. No need for the Secret Service to call. Got that guys? Guys?) but doggies? Never! We love doggies here at CY. And kitties too.

ITEM: Airplane Rugby! From the delightful Michelle Malkin (here) comes the story of a Yemeni Muslim who charged the cockpit door of American Airlines Flight 1561 and began pounding on the door while yelling “Allahu Akbar!” That’s “God is great” in Arabic, and just happens to be what Jihadist bombers and assorted other killers routinely scream just before they slaughter innocents. Reactionary and anti-Muslim passengers and cabin crew, obviously misinterpreting his peaceful outreach to the flight crew quickly leapt upon and subdued him. DHS Chief Janet Napolitano has not commented, but if she had, I’m sure she’d observe that the system worked perfectly, you know, just like when the underwear bomber came within a few molecules of blowing a plane out of the sky? We’re in the very best of hands, but only when we rely on each other instead of waiting for witless, clueless bureaucrats to protect us.

ITEM: Campus Carry Department: Visit the Atlantic (here) for insight into the throbbing recesses of the anti-gun brain. More and more states are considering concealed carry bills for college campuses. Good on them. With the Bin Laden removal, Jihadists will be more likely to attack larger numbers of smaller, less spectacular, softer targets, like schools, and not just colleges. Capable, responsible adults are capable responsible adults on or off school property. Self- righteous anti-gunners are--to killers--easy targets, on or off school property. Asking and answering this simple question might provide a bit of clarity: An armed killer is on his way down the hallway to your child’s classroom. Do you want their teacher to be unarmed and unable to protect your child? If you honestly, truly believe your child would be better off at the mercy of a madman, I’d like a copy of video of you explaining to your child why you find subjecting them to the mercy of a homicidal madman is a good idea. Hey, live your convictions, right?

ITEM: I knew Mr. Obama was factually challenged and basically clueless about, well, just about everything, but this one takes the cake. In a May 9 speech in El Paso, Mr. Obama claimed that the border fence on our southern border was “basically complete.” Hmm. Under his administration we’ve completed a haphazard, non-standard, ineffective 670 miles out of 2000 miles. I guess that qualifies as “nearly complete,” doesn’t it? He also asked the audience if he needed to build a moat at the border to make Republicans happy. Apparently he has not heard of the Rio Grande, which has, for its entire history, been a large ditch with water in it. Visit Katie Pavlich at Townhall (here) for more.

ITEM: Well, Duh! Department: Sears, the fourth largest business in the Chicago area is courting several states in anticipation of fleeing that particular version of a people’s paradise. Illinois officials have taken some torpid notice, but it now appears likely that a major producer of the tax revenues so beloved by liberals will soon be relocating. Go here for the story. This notice follows on the heels of a recent trip to Texas by California officials to try to figure out why business are fleeing the Golden state like passengers on a sinking cruise liner. Could it be—just maybe—that socialism doesn’t work? Nah!

ITEM: John Hinderaker at Powerline (here) conducts a fine takedown of the whining of Osama Bin Laden’s male children who are upset at the mean treatment afforded dear old dad. In a just, rational world, the President of the United States would be pointing out that such people are fortunate indeed that we don’t immediately wipe them and all like them from the face of the planet. In a just, rational world. For now, rational people will have to explain, very patiently to small, liberal and Jihadist minds, why Bin Laden is not a sympathetic figure and why most Americans are disappointed that he was treated so nicely.

ITEM: At Pajamas Media, Barry Rubin (here) reports on Amr Moussa, who will almost certainly be Egypt’s next president. Moussa is certain that the Parliament, which will write Egypt’s constitution and laws, will be dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and worse. Worse? Worse indeed. Alarming, but not surprising, is his recitation of Hillary Clinton’s lack of rational thinking in correctly categorizing the MB and its allies. As a public service, CY offers the following:

Dear Secretary of State Clinton:

The Muslim Brotherhood and all of its allies are fanatical Muslims. Islam is fundamentally incompatible with Democracy and with Christianity, Judiasim--come to think of it, Muslims routinely kill each other too. Each and every one of the people you seem unable to understand would be more than delighted to kill you because you are American, you have a high position in our government, and you are female. Each and every one of them wants to destroy America (and Israel, of course) and they won’t be mollified by your moral confusion and Muslim outreach. Got that?

We are soon to see the wages of fecklessness and dithering. Mr. Obama is a rank neophyte and far less informed and capable than his acolytes claim. The price, for all of us and for the world, will be high.

ITEM: One of the primary objections to the ObamaCare individual mandate—the requirement that all Americans buy government mandated and approved insurance policies—is that such a mandate, in effect, regulates inactivity. In simple terms, if I choose not to buy insurance, I am engaging--at most--only in thought. The government has no power to regulate thought, which is essentially inactivity. If, on the other hand, I actually enter into the process of buying insurance, then I am engaging in activity, and the government may have a more plausible claim to the power to regulate that activity. Easy to understand, right? Not so much for a three judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals which is hearing that very case. Go here for a rational article about why you are right and the judges are wrong.

ITEM: Have you wondered why California is self-combusting? Why hundreds of thousands of people and businesses by the score are fleeing that conflagration of regulation, taxation, nanny-statism and liberal lunacy? Wonder no more. Go here for a concise explanation of the horrendous and likely irreparable problems of a state that will, in the very near future, be demanding a federal bailout, a bailout Mr. Obama will move heaven and Earth to give them.

And in a related story, go here to discover the weighty issue the California Legislature is now pondering: mandating whether the sheets used on hotel beds throughout the state must be flat or fitted. And these people wonder why California is in such trouble. The legislators involved couldn’t say “this isn’t the state’s business?” I could easily add many more examples of similar idiocy, but at CY, we look out for your mental health and voluntarily impose a weekly outrage limit. Consider, gentle readers, that this is the mindset that now occupies the Executive Branch.

ITEM: Louis Renault Award of the Week: From Hot Air (here) comes the news that the General Accounting Office (GAO) is accusing the Obama Administration of ignoring science and playing environmental politics in shutting down the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Depository in Nevada last year. Even if the process to begin a new depository elsewhere was begun today, it would cost untold billions and take a minimum of 20 years to navigate the red tape. I don’t know about you, but I was shocked, shocked! at the notion that Mr. Obama would not put science back in its rightful place in government. Surely this cannot be true! Yeah, it is--and don’t call me Shirley.

ITEM: First Lady Michelle Obama has invited Rapper “Common” to the White House for a “poetry event,” sparking a bit of controversy (here). Common, it seems, is a good pal of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, of “God Damn America,” and thrown under the Obama bus after Mr. Obama said he could not more abandon him than his own white grandmother. Kerthump! Oh yes, and his raps celebrate killers and radicals, and denigrate women, you know, the usual. I’m inclined to cut the White House some slack on this one. After all, considering the Socialists, Communists, racists, corruptocrats and other flora and fauna that inhabit the White House on a daily basis, this guy is a neophyte at best.

ITEM: Louis Renault Award, Housing Industry Division: I was shocked, shocked! to learn from Hot Air (here) that the homebuyer tax credits thrown wildly about to compound the problems the Democrats created by forcing banks to issue home loans to people who couldn’t afford them have actually been an enormous failure, not only to the homebuyers, but to the taxpayers. Who’da thunk it? Actually, just about anyone who knows anything about economics and/or real estate.

ITEM: You are, I’m sure, up to speed on the NLRB/Boeing case wherein Boeing has already spent billions to open a new plant for its advanced 787 Dreamliner in South Carolina, and the NLRB, dominated by union minions, has filed a complaint against Boeing to prevent the opening of the plant in the non-union state. Go here to read Jennifer Rubin’s informative article in The Washington Post. This is an important issue that provides a small peek into America’s future if Mr. Obama gets a second term. It’s not pretty. If the Republican’s don’t exploit this for 2012, they’re well, Republicans.

ITEM: In a past edition of QTs, we reported on the frisking of a six-year-old by alert and professional child molesters employed by the TSA. Go here for additional photographs of another frisk of another 6-year-old, an 8-year-old and of the diaper--I am not making this up--of a toddler. The TSA is, of course, defending these blue-suited pederasts. It is also most annoying that the story does not appear in American media, but in the Daily Mail of England. I'm more security minded than most and can usually suggest why security personnel might have done a given thing that seems, to the uninitiated, outrageous. Here, I'm drawing a blank. Look at the photos and tell me if you can do any better. If the Republicans don’t make an issue of this for 2012, they’re doubly Republicans.

ITEM: Go here to Commentary for a great--but lengthy--article by George Russell that outlines the cases of several domestic terrorists, pals of William Ayers, good friend and political crony of Barack Obama. Russell explores several inexplicable Clinton pardons and provides an interesting look into one of the more despicable undercurrents of the Left. This, gentle readers, is one of the fetid pools in which Mr. Obama learned his political craft.

ITEM: I knew it! If the Republicans took back the House, all manner of chaos would erupt: Global warming going berserk, people coming to expect affordable gasoline and food, terrorist heros being captured and killed, but this, this is just too much. Yes, the Michigan cops have arrested Batman! Go here for the shocking story and a sweat-stained bat-costume. Holy Five-Day Deodorant-Pads, Batman!

And with that, I must, once again, thank you for dropping by and urge you to come back next week, same bat-time, same bat-channel!

College Student that Made $ on Bin Laden Death Tee Shirts Decides to Refund His Customers

I talked about it at the time and was amazed at how quickly he was able to capitalize on the opportunity.

Now I see via Ed Driscoll posting on Instapundit that he has had a change of heart, and has refunded all the money to his customers. Ed speculates that his very liberal professors had a come-to-Jesus moment with the young man, perhaps implying that his current and future success may be in jeopardy at NYU if he didn't change his tune. I think Ed's speculation may have merit.

I feel sorry for Mr. Harary if he felt compelled to relinquish his profits in order to remain in good standing at NYU.

Osama Bin Laden's death is worth celebrating, or at the very least, the accomplishments of the operators that took him down certainly are.

And Now for Something Completely Different

Any of you who have ventured over to the "About the Authors" page may have noticed that I mention as part of my bio that I was a professional ATV rider for a time. and no, I wasn't a racer.

Instead, I worked for a electrical utilities subcontractor in one of a pair of two-man teams that journeyed across the back-country of southern New York building detailed GPS maps of high-voltage, power lines for Central Hudson. We would go out in teams of two ATVs (quads, four wheelers, whatever), map the position of the towers, note any erosion, damage or vandalism, and mark access points. The goal of the work was to make it far easier for power crews to know what they were getting into when trying to fix a downed line, and to note any priority maintenance work that needed to take place.

It was exhausting work, man-handling an ATV through swamps and brush and mountains nine hours a day, but it was also rewarding. I was out in nature, could easily measure my accomplishments at the end of the day, and was learning how to ride through experience in fairly extreme conditions to the tune of 100 miles a week of back-country riding.

Did you catch the "learning how to ride" part?

I'd never been on a quad before I took the job, and it was a crash course education (pun intended), to be sure. I remember my first ride started with me having to crawl down the rock-covered face of a slope beside a train trestle, across a cold water creek, and up the other side. It only got more interesting from there (remind me to relate the story of when I parked on a bear some time).

Miraculously, I survived the several thousand miles I road that summer and fall, even though I managed to sink my quad in a bog (pulling it out was not fun), rolled it twice, was thrown from it once, and had to go down a mountain face without brakes when they partially failed.

It was kind of odd, but New York didn't require any sort of training (much less licensing) to do the kind of riding I was doing. This is the same state that wants to outlaw salt and certain kinds of fast food. They were fine with me muscling a Honda Rancher ES 350 through state forests, public right-of-ways, and even around reservoirs guarded by DHS.

I never really thought about the lack of regulations or training until an advertiser asked if I would put up a link to their site promoting ATV tests last night. Apparently, certifications are apparently required by law in Iowa, Massachusetts, Montana, and New Mexico to ride on public lands, and the site provides study guides and the tests online.

So yeah, while this advertiser is marketing a product, they did get me wondering about why so few states require any sort of training to ride off-road, when it is both potentially much more dangerous than riding on-road, and capable of doing significant environmental damage if done irresponsibly.

The two times I rolled my quad were matters of bad judgement. The first time I misjudged the angle of a slope and I luckily rolled off the high side. the second time I thought the quad would push down a sapling in a dense section of brush, and instead, it just pitched the quad over. I'm not sure that in 2000 miles of riding through the kind of terrain I was covering that training could have helped either one of those incidents.

Oddly enough, the one time I really got banged up was the result of an accident that might have been prevented if I'd been alerted by a course such those offered at the link.

The high-voltage lines we were mapping were typically the big steel towers, and the vehicles used to put in those towers and service them are big pieces of equipment, and occasionally left big ruts in soft wet ground. When that ground dried out, it can turn a rut into a launch pad for unsuspecting riders, and that is precisely what happened. My front wheel entered a dip and I pitched forward, and them as the rear dropped as the quad clawed its way out I was thrown back, and as the rear of the quad lifted as I was leaning backward, up back and off I went, landing awkwardly and nearly breaking my arm.

Would a riding course have alerted me to how an ATV might pitch and buck in that sort of circumstance, and have given me a better idea of what to expect?

Would an ATV course have given me a better idea of how to negotiate a path down the side of a mountain after experiencing a partial brake failure?

I don't know.

In theory, however, I do like the idea of ATV certifications purely as a way of addressing safety concerns. The fact these states seem to have an eye on teaching rider how "tread lightly" is also admirable.

I'll be interested to see if these programs take off in other states, and to see how atvcourse.com fairs in accomplishing the goals the states have laid out.

Typical White Person: President's Cousin Rips Obamacare

But what does he know. He's only a doctor.

It’s not often that a president's most vocal critic comes from his own family, but I believe the inviolable oath I took to my patients demands that I oppose ObamaCare.

Today, ObamaCare is on the ropes—in the courts, and in terms of public opinion. While the Supreme Court denied Virginia's petition to hear its ObamaCare lawsuit on an expedited basis earlier this month, this case will soon be heard by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In a more high-profile case, Judge Roger Vinson ruled the individual mandate unconstitutional. This lawsuit, which was filed by more than half the states in the union and led by Florida, will be heard in the U.S. appeals court in Atlanta in June. And in poll after poll, it has become clear that more than one year after ObamaCare's passage, the American people strongly reject it. The fundamental flaw at the core of ObamaCare is the mistaken belief that the government can spend your dollars more effectively than you can. This tragically pessimistic belief views all Americans with suspicion as either incompetent or unrighteous but either way in need of big-government control.

Microsoft to Buy Skype

This is not going to be welcome news to many.

NYC Observations, Updated 051311

Well, I’m back! Sorry for the paucity of blogging over the last five days, but I’ve been away on...business. Actually, the choir with which I sing performed at Avery Fisher Hall of Lincoln Center in NYC on Sunday afternoon. We performed the world debut of an entirely new work for choir and orchestra and also performed the Mozart Requiem Mass in Dm (K.626). Surprisingly, the hall was nearly full--I’m told by MidAmerica Productions (the concert’s promoter--our director is their principal Associate Conductor) that NY Philharmonic performances in that hall aren’t always so well attended--and we actually got a standing ovation, which apparently isn’t something to be taken for granted with NY audiences. In any case, we were all pleased with the performance, which went very well. As I sat onstage, one of about 165 performers, I realized that only a tiny portion of the population of the world would ever have the opportunity I was about to experience. We really do need to be grateful for whatever opportunities we have to create beauty and to care for others.

A few random NYC observations (Keep in mind, please, that I stayed in the Grand Hyatt, which is directly above Grand Central station, so most of my observations are confined to the Manhattan experience):

People are as friendly, generally, in NYC as anywhere else. However, when walking--and everybody does a great deal of that--they tend to adopt the “sidewalk” stare and to shoot more or less straight ahead, never making eye contact with anyone else, but plowing through the mass of humanity swimming around them.

Despite the best efforts of Mayor Bloomberg and similarly RINO and/or Democrat busybodies, one can still ingest more than sufficient fats, salt and other food substances they deem bad for us. However, it is almost all more costly--often much more costly--than just about anywhere else.

The hotel room cost 4-5 times more than a comparable room in flyover country, was smaller than many flyover rooms, had only two twin beds, and was no better appointed or in any way superior.

The number of women wearing high heels--and I mean HIGH heels--on the sidewalks, subways and other treacherous portions of NYC (and that’s most of it) is truly amazing, and actually somewhat humorous. I’ve often been amused and amazed at the horrifying things women do to their feet in the name of fashion. NYC is surely a shoe and foot fetishist paradise.

Everyone in NYC smokes. I don’t mean actually, but if you walk anywhere, you’re going to be inhaling substantial smoke from the many who populate the sidewalks, standing around taking a smoke break and/or walking, who do. There seems to be always someone upwind of wherever you’re walking smoking like mad.

The city is an odd mixture of the old, dirty, decaying and decrepit and the new and shiny, constantly changing from storefront to storefront, block to block, subway station to subway station
.
Several of my compatriots and I went to one of the reputedly finest pizza joints in the city. Feh. $32.00 for a small pizza and a salad shared by three. Decent salad and pizza, but cheaper and easily as good can be had much more cheaply and in greater quantity elsewhere.

Did the Empire State Building. Great view, but the experience is annoying in the extreme. Huge numbers of people visit constantly, and they employ huge amounts of those annoying little people-cattle chutes to funnel you in the directions that seem good to them. I haven’t had so much hurry-up-and-wait since I was in the military.

Loads of police everywhere. In some areas, officers in tactical gear, replete with helmet, tactical vest, thigh holster, and AR carbine. The streets seem generally safe, but there are certainly the quaint and stereotypical characters one would expect to see.

Ground Zero remains more or less a hole in the ground with construction apparently underway, but barriers surrounding it, make viewing of, well, a hole in the ground, difficult or impossible. Sad, and an indictment of contemporary government that something three times as big and tall hasn’t already been erected in the place of the twin towers.

I didn’t realize that the Julliard School is right across the street from Lincoln Center. I also didn’t realize that Carnegie Hall looks so--relatively speaking--small and old--very old.

Like Mount Rushmore, the Statute of Liberty is endlessly impressive and emotion-inducing to the patriotic.

New Yorkers will stand or walk within millimeters of anyone else, whether they have to or not. Personal space seems to be an alien concept in Manhattan.

The Intrepid Museum is pretty cool but expensive. If you’re a veteran, it’s $17.00, but $24.00 otherwise. The Intrepid is a WWII Essex class aircraft carrier, and the hanger and flight decks hold a wide variety of aircraft from WWII to the present, including an SR71. Space on warships is always at a premium, but it’s quickly apparent that people from earlier generations were, on average, smaller than we are now. A Concorde is also present, but access is more expensive still and limited to guided tours. Also present is the Growler, a rare, circa 1958 nuclear cruise missile submarine. Diesel-electric, it has two enormous tubular hangers on the foredeck. Two Regulus cruise missiles (crude and big by contemporary standards) fit in each hanger. To fire, the sub had to surface, roll a missile back onto the launcher just in front of the sail, fire, lather and repeat as required. Only two such subs were ever built and were obsolete virtually the day they first set sail. I’ve toured the WWII U-boat at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. The Growler is much larger and more congenial for the crew in every way, but still pretty claustrophobic. Fascinating how quickly technology improves. The interior of the sub and its equipment looked very much like WWII tech, and of course, it wasn't very far removed from that era.

At one time, it was possible to identify Europeans by their dress. No longer. Everybody--except those who dress culturally--looks pretty American. Although, some of the women do give themselves away with things like black lace leggings under short-shorts, etc.

Driving in NYC must be one of the most blood pressure raising pursuits in the human experience. I’m glad I didn’t have to deal with it. Parking must be exponentially worse. No automotive accessory is likely used more frequently and with greater fervor than the horn.

McDonald’s is McDonald’s pretty much anywhere. A three story McDonald’s, not so much. You order on the ground floor, and march up several flights of stairs to the dining area.

I lived much of my adult life in Wyoming, a state with fewer than a half million people in the entire state. Bizarre to realize that there are that many people, and more, within a few blocks of wherever you’re standing in Manhattan (and probably multiples of stories above you). NYC is surely unique and interesting, but I’m much happier at home.

Chuck Schumer Proposes "No Ride" List for Amtrak

I'm pretty sure he didn't think this one all the way through:

A senator on Sunday called for a "no-ride list" for Amtrak trains after intelligence gleaned from the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound pointed to potential attacks on the nation's train system.

Sen. Charles Schumer said he would push as well for added funding for rail security and commuter and passenger train track inspections and more monitoring of stations nationwide.

"Circumstances demand we make adjustments by increasing funding to enhance rail safety and monitoring on commuter rail transit and screening who gets on Amtrak passenger trains, so that we can provide a greater level of security to the public," the New York Democrat said at a news conference.

As you would expect from a New york progressive, Schumer's "solution" is to throw hundreds of millions of dollars at a problem without solving it.

Any student of history has to be aware that while stations and the trains themselves are prime targets, the rail lines themselves are the weak link. During every major conflict from the mid 19th century onward, rail lines have been major targets for saboteurs, and those lines are nearly impossible to continuously monitor.

Terrorists do not need to enter a train station or get on a train to destroy the train; all they need to do is target an unguarded or just checked section of track with minimal explosives or even robust hand tools to cause a catastrophic derailment. Spending money we don't have to focus additional security resources on the part of the system that already has the most robust security measures is a fool's errand.

Further, Shumer assumes that passenger trains are the best target for catastrophic casualties, but the derailment of a chemical-laden freight train resulting in the rupture of caustic chemicals could lead to an incident on par with Bhopal.

If Schumer wants to provide the illusion of doing something worthwhile at great expense, he's certainly on the right path. But his farcical "no-ride" list will do nothing to save Americans lives.

Nuclear Dwarf's Genie-Catcher Arrested

I've been telling folks for years that the cult at the top of the heap in Tehran was nutty as a squirrel pantry.

I just didn't know he was in league with Valdemort as well.

Obama Honors SEALs That Killed Bin Laden

Fox News has the story:

President Obama has met with the assault forces who carried out the strike on Osama bin Laden and has awarded them a presidential citation.

The White House says the president, along with Vice President Joe Biden, met privately with the troops at Fort Campbell, Ky., to thank them for their service.

Obama met with the full assault force involved in the raid in Pakistan carried out by Navy SEALS and also with helicopter operators who got them there. He awarded the units involved a Presidential Unit Citation -- the highest such honor that can go to a military unit -- to recognize "extraordinary service and achievement."

In a show of respect, the special operations team presented President Obama with a rare unit patch to wear on his Commander-in-Chief's jacket, something I'm told has not been done for other recent Presidents.

Guy makes $120K in Two Days on Osama Bin Laden Tee Shirts

I've got to give the kid credit. He saw the market opportunity, capitalized on it, and burned the midnight oil.

Now he's filthy rich.

Maurice Harary, 23, set up his T-shirt website Osamadeadtees.com as soon as he heard that the former Al Qaeda leader had been shot by U.S. Navy Seals on Sunday night.

The New Yorker raced home to his apartment to work on building the website on Sunday night and it was ready to go live at 3.30am on Monday morning.
Making money: Maurice Harary, 23, from New York, made $120,000 from his Osama Bin Laden merchandise website in two days.

By Tuesday evening he had already sold more than 10,000 items at $12 a time.

T-shirts bearing slogans including 'Obama killed Osama', 'Osama's back - not!' and 'Just dead it' have been flying off his virtual shelves.

I rather like the fact that Harary is a New Yorker. My only complaint is that I wish more people would honor those who made Bin Laden a room-temperature commodity.

Something more like this.

al Qaeda Confirms that Bin Laden Sleeps with the Fishes

I guess this will make things a little harder on the conspiracy theorists, but only just a little bit.

Al Qaeda released a statement on jihadist forums Friday confirming the death of its leader, Osama bin Laden, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors Islamist websites.

The development comes days after U.S. troops killed bin Laden in a raid on a compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.

The statement, translated by SITE, lauded the late militant, threatened to take action against the United States, and urged Pakistanis to "rise up and revolt."

Bin Laden's death will serve as a "curse that chases the Americans and their agents, and goes after them inside and outside their countries," the message said.

"Soon -- with help from Allah -- their happiness will turn into sorrow, and their blood will be mixed with their tears," it said.

It appears the White House decision to go back on the precedent of publishing pictures of dead terrorists accomplished precisely nothing, which anyone could have predicted. Perhaps one day we'll one again elect a President that understands that you win wars by breaking the enemy ability and spirit to fight, not placating them.

Barack Obama is not that President.

U.S. Government a Major Supplier of Narco-Terrorist Weaponry in Mexico

Despite Barack Obama's repeated use of the "90% lie" in an effort to push gun control measures, civilian gun shops aren't responsible for arming the Mexican drug cartels.

For that, you can thank Uncle Sam.

Video Blackout on Bin Laden Raid? Not Likely.

Is anyone buying this?

Leon Panetta, director of the CIA, revealed there was a 25 minute blackout during which the live feed from cameras mounted on the helmets of the US special forces was cut off.

A photograph released by the White House appeared to show the President and his aides in the situation room watching the action as it unfolded. In fact they had little knowledge of what was happening in the compound.

In an interview with PBS, Mr Panetta said: "Once those teams went into the compound I can tell you that there was a time period of almost 20 or 25 minutes where we really didn't know just exactly what was going on. And there were some very tense moments as we were waiting for information.

"We had some observation of the approach there, but we did not have direct flow of information as to the actual conduct of the operation itself as they were going through the compound."

The video feeds of this op were likely transmitted via a drone circling overhead, an AWACS or similar aircraft in Afghanistan and another in the Arabian Sea, and surveillance satellites overhead. The odds that feeds from 79 operators, fed through multiple uplinks, was never seen or recorded simply isn't credulous.

Further, you'll note that Panetta chose his words very carefully. They did not have direct flow of information. That indicates that there were recording of the assault recorded on the flash-memory of helmet-mounted cameras, but these are just one more set of images—along with the three or more sets of photographs of Bin Laden's body—that the "most transparent Administration in history" refuses to show the American people.

Quick Takes, May 05, 2011

ITEM: At the top of our list today is the death of Osama Bin Laden in a CIA/SEAL raid on April 30. You’ve read the details elsewhere by now, but let’s make three simple predictions and see how they pan out:

(1) Mr. Obama will claim credit, even calling it a triumph of leading from behind (his spokesmen will surely do the latter).
(2) Worldwide jihadist activity will increase, particularly against Americans, in retaliation.
(3) Because this is not backed up by a consistent show of American strength, it will not suppress jihadist power in those nations currently embroiled in turmoil, but will embolden them and make it more likely that they will establish anti-American governments.
(4) George W. Bush and global warning had something to do with it.

ITEM: Birthergate Department: The birther issue has, apparently, been retired, yet the entire affair has left a bad taste in the mouths of far too many Americans. Who among us, if necessary, could not quickly produce a certified copy of our birth certificate? Most American’s parents keep such copies in their homes. Let us assume that the certificate released by Mr. Obama on April 27 is the genuine article, for there is no compelling, current reason to believe otherwise, yet the matter is not completely dead. Far too many questions remain unanswered, questions that could and should have been answered long ago, questions raised not about Mr. Obama’s place of birth, but of his obstinate refusal to convincingly confirm it. That the most transparent administration in history has been anything but transparent in this matter, and and so much else, has allowed this controversy to grow and flourish, and to whatever degree it persists, Mr. Obama bears considerable responsibility. A large part of this issue is simply trust. Having spent a reported one million dollars to kept his birth certificate--which appears to be completely innocuous--hidden, one may reasonably ask if Mr. Obama is worthy of the public’s trust.

ITEM: Blast From The Past! Remember those doctors in Wisconsin who handed out fake medical excuses to union teachers protesting Gov. Walker? Apparently some 1000 teachers used them, and many may find themselves in trouble, but what about the doctors? From Fox News (here) we learn that the University of Wisconsin--which apparently employs many of those involved--and the State Medical Examining and Departments of Licensing and Regulation are also investigating the doctors. Speaking of trust, what’s a doctor’s integrity and honesty worth? In Wisconsin, apparently not much. Wrist slaps anyone?

ITEM: NOMINATIONS FOR THE WORST EX-PRESIDENT ARE NOW OFFICIALLY CLOSED. From Hot Air (here) we discover that the execrable Jimmy Carter recently traveled to North Korea with a delegation self-styled as “the Elders.” Success? Only if you count denigrating America as success. Mr. Carter, in his own insipid style, accused America of violating the human rights of North Koreans by not showering them with food. Let me see if I understand this: The Norks are one of the last fanatical, crazy communist regimes on the planet. They torture, starve and murder their own citizens in wholesale lots. Their entire population suffers from stunted growth and people actually eat tree bark and any vegetation they can find. Any aid we send there does not go to the starving people, but to Kim Jong Il--who would not, by the way, meet with “the Elders”-- and the Army and Politboro. The Norks export terrorism, kidnap foreign nationals, randomly attack South Korea and threaten everyone in range with nuclear attack. Well of course they have the moral high ground and we must do whatever they want! Thanks for clarifying that Mr. Carter!

ITEM: Louis Renault Award of the New Century (Thus Far)! Department: San Francisco Chronicle Reporter Carla Marinucci recently recorded and posted video of protestors at an Obama fundraiser while she was serving as a White House “pool” reporter. The White House, obviously angered, notified her that she would be banned in the future. Amazingly, the SFC pushed back, publishing the story, and now the White House is claiming that Marinucci was never banned--although she still is. A card-carrying member of the Mainstream Media is now shocked, shocked! to learn that Mr. Obama and his minions are hypocrites and liars, and hypocrites and liars who don’t particularly like reporters! Go here for the story.

UPDATE: At SFGate (here) comes more on Carla Marinucci. There can be, of course, no discord! The One is universally loved and adored. Long live The One! Aren’t you glad we have the most transparent presidential administration in American history? Yeah. Me too.

ITEM: Have you wondered about the realities of health care, more specifically, Medicare? Go here for a great article by Daniel Mitchell on why Mr. Obama’s Medicare guru, recess appointed Dr. Donald Berwick, hasn’t a clue about economics or Medicare. Dr. Berwick, you may recall, is the man who think Britain’s National Health Care system is absolutely brilliant. You know the British system, interminable waits, shortages, filthy hospitals, surly, uncaring providers, dead patients who just couldn’t wait? Yeah, that one. Ah, the fierce moral urgency of change! Discuss.

ITEM: Will Barack Obama become a one-term president? Peter Wehner at Commentary (here) thinks so. I think it’s possible if the Republicans, as they are so often prone to do, do not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Read and make up your own mind.

ITEM: Go here to see a stark before/after satellite image of Tuscaloosa, Alabama pre and post tornado. It might serve to remind us that thinking we can effect the course of nature in any meaningful way--global warming?--is utter foolishness.

ITEM: Have you heard about the King & Spaulding controversy? Go here to Le-gal In-sur-rec-tion for a sharp exposition. In Brief: K & S was hired by the US House of Representatives to defend the Defend of Marriage Act (DOMA). Under pressure by unspecified gay groups, K & S dropped the House as a client. The first backlash has been the State of Virginia under Republican AG Ken Cuccinelli. Virginia has now dropped K & S because it’s rather hard to work with lawyers who bow to outside pressures on the spur of the moment. It’s an interesting, important article worth your time.

ITEM: Tales of Smart Diplomacy, #2842: Diplomatically, things in Syria just couldn’t be going any better for the US. The regime, threatened, is engaging in the routine slaughter of its citizens, likely with help from Iran. What’s that you say? They’d never dare harass Americans? Consider Elliott Abrams (here), former diplomat/national security figure in the Bush White House, who tells us that an American diplomat in Damascas was detained, hooded and roughed up by Syrian security agents before being released. By way of comparison, such things come close to an act of war. Read Jennifer Rubin’s full account to see how Smart Diplomacy continues to make America seem so feckless that Jimmy Carter looks like a lion of international strength by comparison.

ITEM: It was May day again, time to reflect on all that it means, most particularly a celebration of communism. It is disgusting to know that a great many, including our fellow citizens, still celebrate this despicable “holiday.” It’s equally despicable that Mr. Obama hired Van Jones, a self described communist, and that Mr. Obama has spent much of his life in similar company. How many have the communists murdered? Glad you asked. Go here to the Volokh Conspiracy to find out.

ITEM: Remember astroturfing? When Nancy Pelosi suggested that the Tea Party movement was not really a grass roots movement, but an artificial contrivance of the Republican Party, hence “astroturf?” Yeah. That didn’t work out so well for the Dems in November of 2010, did it? But now the Dems have been actually astroturfing on their own, sending political operatives into Town Hall meetings by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) and others to harass them and to try to make it appear that there is no support for an actually responsibly budget. It hasn’t been working out so well. Go here for the story, and a great photoshop of a classic Norman Rockwell painting. There may be hope after all. Discuss.

ITEM: Remember Ezra Klein, the reporter responsible for the Journolist debacle? For those who weren’t aware of it, the Journolist was an on line-chat room of sorts where liberal journalists (there’s an oxymoron!) actually discussed their strategy for damaging President Bush, and lo and behold, across the nation, their talking points would crop up, identically, like particularly aggressive and noxious weeds. With its exposure, Journolist became defunct, but I thought you’d like to have a preview of what the press has in store for us in the eternal campaign culminating in 2012. Here’s what Klien wrote back in 2008:

“Obama’s finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don’t even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence, and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair. The other great leaders I’ve heard guide us towards a better politics, but Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves, to the place where America exists as a glittering ideal, and where we, its honored inhabitants, seem capable of achieving it, and thus of sharing in its meaning and transcendence.”

There just aren’t words to describe such delusion, such pathology...

ITEM: From Hot Air (here) comes the news of the governmental genital fondling of Susie Castillo, former Miss USA, at the Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport. Ms. Castillo was, understandably upset. I suppose it’s more fun to fondle beauty queens than six year old girls, but considering some of those the government apparently hires for the TSA, you never know. “You can’t professionalize unless you federalize,” said then Senate Majority Leader John Daschel (D-SD). I believe that sort of professionalism is available at any penitentiary near you.

ITEM: What Would Machiavelli Do? Go here for a short piece by the indispensable Michael Barone. Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), Italian Renaissance political philosopher, wrote “The Prince,” a manual on how to get and keep power. I often explain to my students that the book is, even now, read and studied around the world by politicians and human beings. Machiavelli asks whether it is better to be loved or feared. He concludes that it’s best to be both loved and feared, but if you have to settle for one, it’s better to be feared. If Mr. Obama ever read “The Prince,” he apparently learned nothing from it, for particularly in foreign affairs, he’s managed to become hated and mocked, but that’s smart diplomacy for you. Discuss.

ITEM: Visit the New York Times (here) for an interesting story about Representative Alan West (R-FL). Some of Col’ West’s comments: Barack Obama is a “low-level socialist agitator.” “I don’t drink my own tub water or read my own press.” “I tell the truth and I stand on convictions and you know what you’re getting.” That’s the kind of change one could hope for.

ITEM: There was a recent raid by crack government operatives that received little airplay. Highly trained undercover FDA (Food and Drug Administration?!) operatives made a group of sinister criminals do the perp walk for foisting dangerous agricultural products on a witting public. Yes, your federal tax dollars hard at work! The FDA arrested some Amish (?!) farmers for selling raw milk to people who knew it was raw milk. No doubt AG Holder will demand terror trials in NYC. Go here for the entire, bizarre story. These guys ought to team up with the TSA.

ITEM: Have you wondered about “quantative easing?” Do you think the Secretary of the Treasury, the tax evading Timothy Geithner, isn’t exactly playing with a full deck? Well so does the invaluable Mark Steyn. Go here for the article, and if you haven’t yet read “America Alone,” please do. It’s easily one of the most important books of the last decade.

ITEM: Today (Thursday, May 5) Mr. Obama will be visiting Ground Zero and meeting with 9-11 families. This is billed as an opportunity to unify the nation behind Mr. Obama as he continues, like Sir Robin, to bravely lead from behind, run away, whatever. Remember please, gentle readers, that Mr. Obama did meet with 9-11 families once before. They left that meeting with a very bad taste in their mouths and it is unlikely that the passage of time will sweeten it, nor will they be anxious to serve as political props for Mr. Obama. Likewise please recall that Mr. Obama has, several times, called for unity and civility, and before the echo of his teleprompter-inspired words has died, done and said just the opposite. I’ll leave it to you to decide if this trip is the act of an American President or a cheap politician playing events for all they’re worth, hoping for personal benefit.

ITEM: In a related story, we learn from Fox News (here) Mr. Obama invited Mr. Bush to be present at Ground Zero on May 5. Bush reportedly appreciated the invitation, but “has chosen in his post-presidency to remain largely out of the spotlight,” David Sherzer, a Bush spokesman, said. Even in office, Mr. Bush acted with restraint and class, none of which he has lost in retirement. But it’s also a smart move in that he knows that Mr. Obama’s last meeting with 9-11 families was a disaster. Better not to be a part of that. In addition, Mr. Bush has seen how Mr. Obama treats his invited guests, such as Paul Ryan, who he recently savaged at an economic speech. Mr. Ryan is only the latest in a long line of luminaries insulted by Mr. Obama, beginning most notably with the Surpreme Court during his first State of the Union address. While in office and after, Mr. Bush has continued, without publicity and without praising himself, to meet with our military members and their families. Even if he actually cared for our military rather than photo ops for his own glorification, Mr. Obama can never hope to catch up to the good Mr. Bush has done in that arena. Good for you Mr. Bush!

ITEM: According to the Lamestream Media, at the momentous meeting that would decide the go/no go status of the mission to take out Bin Laden, before any of his startled minions could speak, Mr. Obama masterfully slammed his fist onto the tabletop and solemnly intoned “it’s a go!” What is emerging, what the Lamestream Media is not saying, is that Mr. Obama dithered for 16 hours before making the decision. Sixteen hours during which Bin Laden could have escaped. Sixteen hours during which our military assets were poised and ready. Sixteen hours of witless dithering. Sixteen hours during which it was entirely possible that Mr. Obama would have passed on taking out Bin Laden. Sixteen hours that put the earlier jump off point on Saturday, which caused a further delay of a day due to weather. Remember gentle readers that when Mr. Bush waited seven minutes—seven minutes for his helicopter to be warmed up and preparations for departure to be made—he was castigated by the same media vermin. I’ll have more to say on this in greater detail in the near future, but for now, let’s reserve awarding Mr. Obama the nation’s highest award for swift and decisive military leadership until all of the facts are known. This much we do know: General Patton he’s not.

ITEM: “Well, Duh!” Headline of the Millennium: “Soldiers With Mental Illness More Often Get PTSD.” Ya think? Story here.

ITEM: There was once a time when a great many Americans in Congress and in every walk of life were veterans. Even movie stars like Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable, Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson served honorably. Senator Scott Brown (R-Mass) is a Lt. Colonel in the Mass. National Guard. He is asking to do his yearly service in Afghanistan. Brown is a military lawyer, so he’ll be unlikely to be in combat, but good on him!

ITEM: Remember Cindy Sheehan, you know, the woman who had “absolute moral authority” during the Bush Administration? Remember the constant press coverage of her unhinged rants in Crawford, TX and elsewhere? Remember too how when Mr. Obama was elected, she dropped off the edge of the media Earth? Well, she’s still around. Stop by the invaluable PowerLine (here) for a brief reminder.

ITEM: Louis Renault Award, Politicial Division: I was shocked, shocked! to discover politicians behaving like, well, politicians!

Nancy Pelosi, press conference, September 7, 2006:

[E]ven if [Osama bin Laden] is caught tomorrow, it is five years too late. He has done more damage the longer he has been out there. But, in fact, the damage that he has done ... is done. And even to capture him now I don't think makes us any safer.

Nancy Pelosi, earlier today (05-02-11):
The death of Osama bin Laden marks the most significant development in our fight against al-Qaida. ... I salute President Obama, his national security team, Director Panetta, our men and women in the intelligence community and military, and other nations who supported this effort for their leadership in achieving this major accomplishment. ... [T]he death of Osama bin Laden is historic....

Oh well, it’s good to know that like death, taxes and the narcissism of Barack Obama, some things, such as the political opportunism and witlessness of Nancy Pelosi, are faultlessly reliable. Go here for the story.

ITEM: Greenie Intellectual Bankruptcy Department: Via Walter Russell Mead (here) we find a fascinating article about George Monbiot, one of the greenie left’s intellectual big guns bemoaning the intellectual bankruptcy and idiocy of his own movement. Rational people have known this for many years, but some of the greenies are just beginning to wake up. Must reading.

Item: Louis Renault Award, First Lady Edition: The world was shocked, shocked! to learn (here) that the White House put pressure on a small local newspaper to remove a true but unflattering reference to the First Lady. The Pleasanton Weekly of Pleasanton, CA was pressured to remove a sentence in which the reporter observed that Mr. Obama would not speak to the Marine pilots of her aircraft apart from making eye contact with them. I am shocked, shocked to hear anyone suggest that either of the Obamas could behave in such an imperious, high-handed, superior, entitled manner. What’s that? If she didn’t, why did the White House demand the sentence be killed? Well, uh, uh…

ITEM: Continuing Tales of The Religion of Peace: It has been long known by those who do not get their news from the Lamestream Media that Arab/Muslim “leaders” routinely say one thing in English to the West, but quite another in Arabic (or other languages) to their own people. And so it goes with the death of Osama Bin Laden. Visit Powerline (here) to see how the Muslim Brotherhood—you know, those pro-American “reformers” in Egypt?—is double dealing.

ITEM: Oh Goody! Department: On May 4, the Army tested a new 5.56mm cartridge designed to replace the standard cartridge now in use for decades. According to Fox News (here) the new cartridge is supposed to be faster and deadlier, but the best part is it’s green! That’s right gentle readers, it’s lead free! I don’t know about you, but the mere fact that the Army would even think about greenie idiocy in the design of munitions is uniquely disturbing. Discuss.

ITEM: Go here for a good article by Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA) that catalogs many of the insane steps Mr. Obama has taken to wreck our economy by means of hindering and shutting down our energy industries. I’m sure most of you know, at least in general, what he has done, but this is a fine reminder. Mr. Obama claims he can do nothing to help (apart from building the Brazilian and Columbian energy industries), but we can do something about it in 2012.

ITEM: Are you still suspicious about Mr. Obama’s “Birth Certificate?” Me too. Bruce Bawer at the PJ Tatler (here) has produced a list of ten things that would tend to raise reasonable suspicions.

And on that conspiracy-mongering note, it's time to thank you, once again, for stopping by, and to say I'm looking forward to seeing you all again next Thursday! America is the greatest nation in human history. Accept no substitutes.

Real Presidents Show Dead Terrorists

But then, nobody ever accused Barack Hussein Obama of being a real President.

GUTLESS

Barack Obama refuses to publish any of the death photos of Osama Bin Laden.

The decision confirms that Obama is weak and too deferential to the sensitivities of people who celebrated the murder of thousands of Americans on September 11, 2001, and who delighted in the beheading snuff films of Daniel Pearl and Nick Berg.

Barack Obama cares more about the opinions of terrorists than he does closure for the America people.

Screw him.

ATF Agents/Auditors in North Carolina Stonewall Criminal Investigation to Protect Their Careers

Yeah, I'm still dogging this, and I'm not going to let it go.

Lee Booth of Greensboro, NC, is a convinced felon with current warrants out for his arrest, and is under investigation by multiple agencies for more crimes than I can list... which may be news to him.

I wrote about Booth's illegal involvement with three gun companies in a Pajamas Media article back in October.

Jerry Ahern (left) and convicted felon Lee Franklin Booth (right). Booth is holding two Detonics pistols, including Ahern's personal carry weapon. This photo was taken on January 6, 2007 using Booth's own Sony DSC-T5. Apparently photographic evidence, eyewitness testimony, and documentary evidence already in the court system from prior civil actions isn't enough to get the BATF to do their damn jobs.

What I haven't made public (until now) is the work I've continued on this case, including the development of key witnesses against Booth and his allegedly criminal enterprises, and the even more frustrating obstruction of justice being carried out by corrupt BATF agents and auditors hoping to cover their tracks and preserve their careers. If you think that Operation Fast and Furious was a mess in Arizona, I can assure you that is every bit as bad here in North Carolina, and far more petty.

There is reputedly physical and documentary evidence that exists to bring charges to put Mr. Booth in prison for many years, but BATF agents and auditors in Greensboro are stonewalling the investigation with the help of at least one BATF employee in Fayetteville.

I've kept my sources covered and will continue to do so, but will reveal some of what I know about the case in order to force the hand of corrupt government officials more intent on protecting their pensions than the citizens they are sworn to protect.

As part of a current BATF investigation being run out of the Charlotte office, the investigating ATF agent instructed other employees to pick up Form 4473s linked to Booth to be picked up from numerous gun stores in North Carolina.

One of the more crucial sets of documentation comes from Ed's Guns in Vass, North Carolina.

Records show that Booth has run literally hundreds of weapons through this particular store, including hundreds of Detonics pistols and an alleged "straw sale" of a .50 BMG sniper rifle from Booth's personal collection. According to sources, Booth is also alleged to have purchased gun parts from other stores, and is alleged to have been a frequent Saturday visitor to Caliber's Indoor Gun Range in Greensboro. All of these allegations are potential felonies, and most are easily proven by simply obtaining records from the locations in question.

But the agent in charge of the investigation has run into a stonewalling effort being orchestrated by local agents and auditors that failed to act upon numerous felony violations in the past due to their own incompetence and breaking of procedure. Sources indicate that BATF employees in Fayetteville that obtained the 4473s from Ed's Guns in Vass are refusing to provide those documents to the Charlotte-based agent in hopes of protecting the BATF agents and auditors in Greensboro.

The BATF SAC in Charlotte isn't happy about this investigation, and would be happy if this case would die a quiet death. Unfortunately for him, local, state and federal sources within law enforcement are tired of machinations designed to protect the incompetent within the BATF and enable a convicted criminal to avoid prosecution, and are willing to talk to the media (me) if it brings a little sunlight on this case.

The BATF has long had credibility problems. If they do not take steps to remedy the problems here in North Carolina, and quickly, their reputation is only going to get worse.

Bin Laden's Death Ultimately Means Little

For most Americans—including progressives that suddenly seem okay with violence directed at someone other than conservatives—Bin Laden's death was a source of both relief and satisfaction. At the same time, those of us grounded in reality—and some aren't—know that neither al Qaeda, nor the Taliban, nor greater Islam's barbaric normalism has suddenly ended because of one man's death.

Osama Bin Laden was just one of thousands of committed warlords in 1,400 years of Islamic history that dedicated his life to the destruction of all ideas that were not lock-step in line with his own. Islam has not been diminished by his death. It's constant bloodlust and history of oppression is not subdued as a result of his passing. Osama Bin Laden's death is just one of a millions that can attributed to the world's most violent death cult. He is merely one of the more recent martyrs.

The war between good and evil, light and dark, the rest of the world and Islam, will continue.

There can be no peace as long as Islam exists. Every second of their history since 632 AD confirms that sad fact. You cannot "coexist" with evil.

You kill it, or it kills you.

And so the war continues.

Final Photo Of Osama Bin Laden

Appropriately enough, the last words ever said to him were, "What's up, chum?"

The Shame of Success

Osama Bin Laden is dead. While there has been some celebration, the rejoicing has been somewhat muted, tinged with the sad realization that more than 3000 Americans at Ground Zero and thousands more thereafter have been lost to us, lost forever. Yes, we’re glad that justice has been done, but Bin Laden’s death seems to have, if anything, less importance than it once might have had. It may be nothing more than another milepost passed on a very long road, a road whose eventual end we can barely imagine.

Let us give credit where credit is due, primarily to the CIA and Navy SEAL assets who did the work, one imagines, with great and well-deserved satisfaction. Credit for President Obama? Certainly, but it must be tempered with the knowledge of the reality that with very few exceptions, his policies, ideals and beliefs have hampered rather than helped our war to preserve civilization.

When one considers what is good for America, Mr. Obama is all too often standing on the opposite side. Yes, he has continued, even stepped up drone attacks on terrorists, but that, like the killing of Bin Laden, is virtually inescapable. It is a politically inexpensive way to appear to be doing something to combat terror while simultaneously pandering to a very anti-American, anti-war base. Could any president, handed the opportunity to get Bin Laden as Mr. Obama was, refuse? Certainly not--there would be no way to keep it under wraps--and Mr. Obama did not. This is the absolute minimum that any president could and should do, not a heroic, steadfast effort pursued with indomitable courage and a belief in American exceptionalism.

Consider that Bin Ladin’s remains are said, by a “senior administration official” to have been handled “in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition.” Even as our military kills one of America’s worst and most dedicated enemies, we must absolutely observe the lunatic political correctness that has marked Mr. Obama’s approach to fighting the war for the future of civilization and his reflexive support for and deference toward all things Islamic.

So greatly has Mr. Obama lowered our expectations that he routinely garners praise for doing even less than the minimum any sane, rational POTUS should do. As senator and candidate, he vehemently opposed the policies and actions that have protected America, and as president, he only grudgingly accepted many of them because to do otherwise would have been immediate political suicide. He had to do it, but he certainly didn’t have to like it. Remember that only a few short weeks ago, a petulant, angry Obama--and his AG Holder-- lectured Americans on their lack of nuance and wisdom for opposing civilian show trials in New York City for terrorist masterminds captured on the battlefield, many of whom are minions of the now deceased Bin Laden. Imagine the circus if Bin Ladin had been captured alive. Is there any doubt that Mr. Obama--the president who demands that terrorists captured on the battlefield be given Miranda warnings-- would argue the fierce moral urgency of a NYC civilian show trial?

Yet now Mr. Obama seeks to put on the mantle of the hardened terror warrior. He may benefit from some PR bounce, but it is unlikely to be lasting, for Mr. Obama does not believe in America, nor does he represent American interests, for he finds America perpetually at fault. More and more Americans are coming to understand this. They understand that he believes in and represents only himself, and that, more than anything else, is why he fails so miserably, particularly in foreign affairs. The President of the United States is a formidable, even terrible, symbol of the collective will and moral force of the greatest, most charitable, most powerful nation ever to exist. Barack Obama is an unaccomplished, inexperienced fast talker, a teleprompter reader, a Chicago machine politician, a man no nation need respect or fear.

Without doubt, our enemies fear our military might, but their calculations are more complex and realistic. A military, no matter how effective, is effective only if it is properly used by a President who is willing and able to tell the difference between our friends and enemies. To date, Mr. Obama has shown little but ambivalence. A President who will not swiftly and surely destroy those who would gleefully destroy us all only encourages and strengthens them, for they care nothing for nuance or outreach, and they care even less for the politically correct gestures of infidels.

Allow Mr. Obama to bask in the spotlight of the resolute warrior--a sensation completely new and foreign to him--for the moment, but remember his record on these matters, a record that does not do him, or the nation, credit. Remember above all that if he had his way, if his unswerving opposition to the polices of Mr. Bush prevailed, if inescapable political reality did not force him to at least partially abandon his true principles, this day would almost certainly never have arrived. In a very real sense, whatever success he can claim was achieved not because of his beliefs and polices, but in spite of them. That is the lingering shame, and danger, facing America.

Bin Laden Death Photo?

A picture of a dead Osama bin Laden. AFP, via Yahoo.

Caption reads:

Iraqis watch a news broadcast on Al-Arabiya showing an image which allegedly shows the body of Al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden. The killing of bin Laden by US forces at a palatial villa near the capital Islamabad has raised fresh questions over Pakistan's loyalties in the war against Al-Qaeda. (AFP/Sabah Arar)

Update: Image Al-Arabiya is showing may have been Photo-shopped according to commenter (see below). I wouldn't be that surprised.

Confirmed a fake.

The U.S. government almost certainly had video cameras recording every second of the raid from satellite, drones, helicopters, and SEAL team member helmet-mounted sources. They also must have still photos from the scene and on-board ship where his DNA was drawn for confirmation and his body was buried at sea.

This confirming information must be made public, While most rational people will find the claims of his death credible, there are a significant number—particularly among his supporters and sympathizers—who will refuse to admit his death if not dramatically shown otherwise with concrete proof. In this day and age, photos and videos still trump DNA tests that people in many parts of the world don't understand or trust.

Show us his corpse, or the conspiracy theorists will have a field day with their rumors.

Hidden By Pakistan, Osama Bin Laden Killed

Justice served.

Bin Laden's hideout was a custom-built home 100 yards from one of Pakistan's elite military academy. That nation obviously was aware of the hideout and was harboring the world's most wanted terrorist... for how long we have not been told. They have a lot to answer for, and all U.S. funding to that nation needs to stop NOW until we learn just how complicit they were.

Update: Bert still on the run.

The Deadly Political Correctness of Gun-Free School Zones, Part III

The first two installments of this series (available here and here) raised the issue of arming school staff, and raised and answered many of the primary objections. Still, how can school officials be convinced to accept concealed handguns in schools? How can risk-averse superintendents and school boards see the danger that we face? Can hard-core liberals be persuaded to accept reality? I hope to provide some possible answers in this, the final installment of this series. I’ll provide, first, some useful information on the relevant federal law (go here for more complete information).

In 1990, the Gun Free School Zones Act was written into law as part of the Crime Control Act. Among its provisions was a blanket prohibition on all firearms within 1000 feet of a school. The act relied on the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, asserting that Congress had the power to enact the law because most firearms probably had at some point moved in interstate commerce. The law basically turned huge portions of the nation into gun-free zones, making their perfectly law abiding owners liable for arrest and prosecution merely due to their unwitting proximity to a school.

In the 1995 Lopez decision, the US Supreme Court struck down the law, ruling essentially that the Congress couldn’t write any law they wanted by claiming some Commerce Clause involvement. The Congress--Bill Clinton was then President--reenacted the law with a few minor language changes, but it was, in essence the same law, but without the 1000’ foot provision. This law has been upheld, for instance, in the Dorsey case (2005) by the 9th Circuit Court, which is infamous as the most liberal in the nation and also, the Circuit most overturned by the Supreme Court.

Here is the relevant text of the law:

Title 18 U.S.C §922(q), The Gun Free School Zones Act of 1995 States:
(A) It shall be unlawful for any individual knowingly to possess a firearm that has moved in or that otherwise affects interstate or foreign commerce at a place that the individual knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, is a school zone.
(B) Subparagraph (A) does not apply to the possession of a firearm—
(i) on private property not part of school grounds;
(ii) if the individual possessing the firearm is licensed to do so by the State in which the school zone is located or a political subdivision of the State, and the law of the State or political subdivision requires that, before an individual obtains such a license, the law enforcement authorities of the State or political subdivision verify that the individual is qualified under law to receive the license;
(iii) that is— (I) not loaded; and (II) in a locked container, or a locked firearms rack that is on a motor vehicle;
(iv) by an individual for use in a program approved by a school in the school zone;
(v) by an individual in accordance with a contract entered into between a school in the school zone and the individual or an employer of the individual;
(vi) by a law enforcement officer acting in his or her official capacity; or
(vii) that is unloaded and is possessed by an individual while traversing school premises for the purpose of gaining access to public or private lands open to hunting, if the entry on school premises is authorized by school authorities

The Federal government generally does not enforce this particular law, in fact, the law notes that it does not intend to occupy this particular field of law, leaving such things to local and state authorities, but one of the primary problems with federal intervention into what should rightfully be the exclusive territory of the states is that federal enforcement of such laws tends to be selectively arbitrary and capricious. One should always be aware of the firearm laws of their state and city, for it is those that are generally the controlling authority. Federal intervention in these matters tends to be dependent on the political leanings of the party in power. It would not be unreasonable to assume that the federal government would be more likely to involve itself in local issues under a Democrat, anti-gun president.

The effect of all of this is that those licensed by a state to carry concealed weapons may do so in school zones in accordance with state law. Those not licensed may carry only unloaded and secured guns on school grounds, though again, federal involvement is unusual and generally only occurs incident to arrests for other crimes.

Let’s return to some of the more common questions and objections relating to the issue.

Q: AREN’T GUNS ONLY USED FOR BAD PURPOSES?

Guns are used as often as 2.5 million times around the nation each year to thwart crime, usually without firing a shot. Even the notoriously anti-gun Clinton administration carried out a study, hoping to prove the opposite in support of even more anti-gun legislation. To their surprise, they discovered from one to one and a half million incidents per year of honest citizens using firearms to protect themselves and others against criminals. They attempted, unsuccessfully, to quickly and quietly bury their results.

Q: AREN’T GUNS FAR TOO DANGEROUS TO BE AROUND CHILDREN?

(Updated 05-02-11) Firearms have been a part of the raising of American children since before the founding of the republic. The number of yearly firearm accidents has been, for decades, dramatically declining. Since the all-time high in 1904, the overall accident death rate has dropped 94% despite the fact that the population has more than doubled and there are, per capita, far more firearms in American hands than ever before--Barack Obama has been the best firearm salesman in American history--accidents are at their lowest level in more than a century.

During his presidency, Bill Clinton was fond of deceptively asserting that 11 or more children die each day by gunshot. To reach this figure, one must count people as old as 24 and more as “children” and include, for example, 19 year old drug dealers killed in turf shootouts, or 20 year old robbers shot by the police or citizens defending their lives.

In reality, for actual children (14 years and under), the daily rate is 1.2 (in the entire country). For children ten and under, it is 0.4. In 2000 (the most recent year for which complete National Center For Health Statistics are available), for example, just over 400 children (14 and under) died of gunshot wounds from all possible causes. Circa 1995, nearly 2900 died in automobile accidents, nearly 950 drowned, and 1000 died of burns. Even bicycle accidents kill more than gunshot injuries. While the death of any child for any reason is tragic, we don’t keep children out of cars and away from water and bikes.

That so few children are injured by gunshot each year is welcome news, but it doesn’t lessen the potential threat and the damage that will be done when an attack occurs. The world has changed. The only rational argument is for effective responses to realistic potential threats. Again, one must balance the potential threat and the potential benefit of any given solution. If all that matters is raw numbers, how can we justify allowing children near cars, water, anything that might produce a burn or even bicycles?

Q: ISN’T THE LEGAL LIABILITY FOR GUNS IN SCHOOLS JUST TOO GREAT?

That we live in a ridiculously litigious society is a sad fact of life. Parents sue schools if their daughters aren’t picked to be cheerleaders or if their sons don’t make the first string football squad. One may use the threat of potential litigation to avoid implementing any program or policy, but the potential liability for the misuse of a firearm is the same on and off school property. Absent a specific state statute, school grounds do not impose any greater legal burden on those carrying a firearm than is found on a public sidewalk, and the requirements for the use of deadly force remain the same whether one is on a playground or the street adjoining it.

Playing high school football is statistically far more dangerous than school shootings, yet we do not abolish football over liability concerns. Anyone carrying a firearm must always take affirmative steps to ensure that it is not misused by themselves or others. Such concerns are an eloquent argument not for disarming victims, but for good training, situational awareness and adult responsibility.

Of course, repeal of the 1995 law would be a practical necessity, but potential liability issues must be primarily addressed by the state legislatures. As many states require schools to be “gun free zones,” it would be necessary--as a first step--for their legislatures to repeal such statutes and authorize the carrying of concealed weapons on school grounds. In Texas, for example, state law allows school boards to authorize the carrying of concealed weapons by those so licensed by adopting a written policy or giving written permission. As education and tort law does differ in the various states, liability issues should be dealt with in the same way.

A sort of “Good Samaritan” law could be written absolving teachers and other staff members of liability so long as they were properly trained and vetted and acting reasonably in response to a deadly threat--just as we expect police officers to act. Such a law obviously must not shield anyone from the consequences of reckless, malicious or foolish behavior or outright negligence--just as the police are not so shielded.

If the strongest case one can muster against armed teachers is that they are too unstable to bear such responsibility, what are such emotional and mental defectives doing in classrooms when millions of citizens with less education carry concealed weapons off school property without incident every day? It should be remembered that teachers are stringently vetted before being allowed to teach. Fingerprinting, credential verification, background checks, references, criminal history checks, are all an essential part of the hiring process for any teacher. Virtually every teacher in America is vetted at least as thoroughly as any citizen who receives a concealed carry license. Indeed, mistakes are sometimes made, but because those who hire teachers must themselves be hired from the human race, and because they must choose teachers from the same inherently flawed pool of applicants, this is rather like observing that oranges are orange and that all oranges are thereby fatally flawed.

It may be worthwhile to consider the potential liability (to say nothing of the horrendously negative public relations fallout) inherent in doing nothing in the face of known terrorist threats when the worst case scenario comes to pass. The MSM has also done a fine job of hiding the fact that from one to 2.5 million Americans successfully defend themselves and others with firearms each year, most without firing a shot. If a school’s only response amounts to “duck and cover,” defending a gun free school zone policy after the fact will suddenly become a very uncomfortable proposition, at Virginia Tech and elsewhere.

THE WORST CASE SCENARIO:

Regardless of how one feels about the foreign policy of a given presidential administration, America has been embroiled in a war with terrorists since at least the Carter administration, and nearly 800 Americans had been killed around the world by terrorists prior to 9-11. It was only 9-11 that made some realize that it might be wise to act as though we were fighting a war against those who had long since publicly declared war on us. We also know that our terrorist enemies desperately want to carry out attacks in America and in American schools. Recently gathered intelligence suggests this and they have elsewhere used this tactic--old hat for them but new to us--for decades. It is equally sobering to realize that our own domestic brand of terrorist, juvenile or adult, always has been present.

The arming of school staff is not a panacea. It cannot replace competent, practical identification and intervention programs--which include intelligent, aware teachers simply keeping their eyes and ears open--which might help to stop some school shootings before they begin. It is, rather, a very low or no cost protective measure for worst case scenarios that has the great benefit of providing credible deterrence if properly publicized. Arming staff is like providing fire extinguishers. Most teachers will complete an entire career without needing a fire extinguisher, but when they do need one, they need it immediately, badly, and nothing else will do. So it is with firearms.

I’m about to provide a scenario based on reality. Remember that I have been there and done that, in the classroom and in the responding police car. A law enforcement agency in which I served as a SWAT operator actually responded to a juvenile shooter in a large high school. In that case, the police again had no real effect. The shooter absent-mindly put down his shotgun in the classroom where he was holding fellow students hostage and a quick thinking youngster grabbed the shotgun, ending the affair. Miraculously, no one was injured. The scenario I propose allows generous response times for the police, and the actions of the killer are likewise based on real events and practical knowledge of the criminal/terrorist mind, of tactical reality, and of school design and procedures.

WARNING: This scenario is somewhat graphic and entirely realistic. The mere idea of anyone shooting helpless children in a school is horrendous and sickening to rational people, but considering such a scenario before the fact and drawing reasonable lessons from it is far better than doing so after the fact of an actual attack.

CONSIDER THIS SCENARIO wherein a single active shooter, an adult, armed only with a shotgun and a revolver, two common, non-military looking firearms, enters an elementary school in small to mid-sized town USA. Unhinged over imagined grievances, he is determined to kill as many students and teachers as possible and has several hundred rounds of ammunition stuffed in his pockets. He does not plan to survive the assault; he will kill himself or force the police to do it. Your eight year old daughter is in the fourth classroom he will enter.

0830: Monday. School has been underway for only a half hour. The morning traffic crunch won’t begin to slacken for at least another 45 minutes. The shooter enters the school--the doors are unlocked--and makes his way to the first classroom in the hallway left of the door. His choice of this hallway is entirely random; he simply decides to go left rather than right, a choice that in this case will spare the lives of the students and teachers in the right hallway. He knows the school has no liaison officer that day and that no one in the school is armed. A phone call asking to speak to the liaison officer (the secretary politely told him that the liaison officer is only in the building on Tuesdays and Thursdays--he is shared with two other elementary schools) and prominently posted gun-free school zone signs have made him certain of those facts.

0832: The first gunshots ring out causing confusion, but not instant panic. What are those noises? Is the sixth grade studying the Civil War again? Is someone watching a movie? Did someone drop something heavy? Are they making noise repairing something again?

0835: A nearby teacher finally realizes what is happening, and horrified by a glimpse of the shooter and what he is doing in that first classroom, frantically tries to call 9-11 on her cell phone. All of the structural steel in the building and nearby wireless computer transmitters interfere with the signal and she is unable to make contact. Hysterically weeping and in a panic, she begins the 200 yard dash to the office.

0837: A call finally goes out from the school office to the police. They relay the room number and the name of the teacher occupying the room where the panicked teacher saw the shooter, but this information means nothing to the responding officers who have no idea how the school is laid out. None of them have ever been inside the building. Even if they had, it’s unlikely they’d remember anything about one of many schools in their community. It takes the dispatcher 15 precious seconds to clarify that the room is in the east side of the building. That has some meaning to the officers. The shooter has reloaded and is entering the next classroom in line. The door is locked, but a kick makes short work of it, as it will every randomly locked door he encounters. He spent five minutes in the first classroom. Twelve children and the teacher are dead. Seven more are wounded and two will die within the week. Miraculously, the shooter overlooked two children who happened to fall under the bodies of their not-so-fortunate classmates. His bloodlust is overpowering; any inhibitions he had against killing children have melted away. He is now faster and more efficient.

0838: The call goes out to officers patrolling the city. Only four are on duty. One is handling a life-threatening emergency and cannot get away. Of the remaining three, the nearest officer is three minutes from the school. Another is five minutes away, the third, probably six minutes away. Various administrative and investigative officers hastily get the word and rush to respond from their centrally located police headquarters, but they will take much longer to arrive, which is the case with the two available sheriff’s deputies and the single available highway patrolman who rush to the school from many miles away, fighting early morning traffic all the way.

0841: Only 11 minutes have elapsed. The shooter has finished with the second classroom. This time he was more methodical and everyone in the classroom is dead or dying. He is reloading on his way to the next in line. The young female principal, shaking with fear, bravely approaches the DT in the hallway and tries to reason with him. The first officer, alone, arrives and sprints toward the east side of the school. He enters and pauses, hearing nothing for several seconds until a single gunshot rings out, followed by several long seconds of silence. Room numbers are on small signs above each classroom door and he cannot see them unless he is actually in a given hallway and close to the doors. He desperately listens, hoping to orient himself as quickly as possible.

0842: The officer again hears gunfire as the shooter enters the third classroom. He draws his handgun and moves, quickly and carefully, in the general direction of continuous, muted gunfire, but is unfamiliar with the building and makes several wrong turns, losing precious seconds. He knows that he must act immediately, but he knows that if he blunders into the shooter unprepared, he will do no good at all. He has to know where the shooter is before he commits to action. He hears what sound like shotgun and handgun fire; could there be more than one shooter? This makes him more cautious and slower, only a few seconds slower, but every second matters. He stops to radio his observations--and to ensure they are heard and understood (the structural steel of the building makes radio signals weak and intermittent)--before he continues.

0844: Two other officers arrive and radio the first officer who pauses to radio directions. They hurry toward him as he moves toward where he believes the shooter to be. The killer has finished shooting and reloads. Only the teacher and two first grade students, all wounded, will survive in the classroom he is about to leave. He steps into the hallway and seeing the officer, who is kneeling over the bloody body of the principal, trying to see if she has a pulse, takes several shots. The first buckshot round misses, shattering a trophy display case in a deluge of glass, wood and plastic. The second strikes the officer’s bullet resistant vest which stops most of the pellets, but several penetrate his shooting arm, numbing it and causing him to drop his handgun just as he is about to fire. In shock, feeling as though he is trying to move through molasses, he struggles to pick up his handgun with his left hand, but it is too late to engage the killer who enters the fourth classroom. Less than three minutes have elapsed from the moment the first officer entered the building until his encounter with the killer.

0845: Fifteen minutes into the incident, four minutes past the arrival of the first officer. The two additional officers arrive and drag their wounded partner, still struggling to raise and fire his handgun, down the hallway, out of the line of fire, just in time to see the killer enter the fourth classroom where your daughter, like the other children, is trying to hide behind a frightened but courageous female teacher who will be the first to be shot. She will live, but will have a single kidney for the rest of her shortened life. Many of her students will not be so fortunate. The officers do not have time to fire a single round before they hear multiple rapid gunshots echo from the classroom down the hall. The shooter knows he has little time left. Leaving their wounded comrade, they leap over the body of the dead principal and rush toward the open door of the classroom, gunshots echoing in their ears...

What happened? Did the officers corner the killer in the classroom and prevent further deaths (other than those already littering the classroom floor)? Did the killer shoot himself or was he shot by the officers? Did your daughter survive?

But it wouldn’t happen like that! The police would surely be there much more quickly and would know exactly what to do. Perhaps a single officer, in the finest martial arts hero style, would disarm the suspect without firing a shot, beating him mercilessly for daring to threaten children, for not heeding the good intentions of the gun free school zone message, preventing a single injury...

Unfortunately, the time frames I’ve suggested here for police response are generous; any honest police officer will confirm that. This does not reflect badly on the police, but is merely a reflection of the realities of time, distance, traffic and the fog of battle. The police did not enter the building at Columbine for many hours. If that time was reduced by 80% would it be fast enough, considering that the killer is on his way to your daughter’s classroom? Would a 90% reduction comfort you? In Pearl, Mississippi, at the Appalachian Law School, at Virginia Tech, the police had no role at all in stopping the killers. This has been true for virtually all school attacks. Even if the killer fires only five rounds in each classroom, would you be satisfied? Would you consider the odds to be in your daughter’s favor?

Remember that in this case, there was a single killer--not a dedicated terrorist--armed only with two widely available, unremarkable firearms. Imagine the consequences if there were multiple killers, dedicated terrorists all, with more effective weapons, even explosives. Imagine that one or more were detailed to hold off the police as they arrive, giving their fellows more time to kill. Would the police response be more, or less effective under these circumstances? How much greater would be the death toll?

But doesn’t this scenario demonstrate the necessity of disarming everyone? Let’s assume that we can wave a magic wand and roll firearm technology back before the invention of gunpowder. Remember that during the Medieval period--and millennia before--thousands of people were often killed in a single day in various battles, killed with the kinds of weapons we would consider very crude indeed. Yet those same weapons are readily available even today, and even if they weren’t, are easy to make. Remember too that honest citizens are not now, nor have they ever been, the problem. They will obey the law; they have no desire to harm anyone. Disarming ourselves in the face of those who will not obey the law and who do wish to harm others is unspeakably foolish and dangerous. The problem, in 500 AD and now, is not tools but human nature. Evil existed then; evil exists now.

Would you want teachers, trained and prepared, to be armed and able to protect your daughter, to have the opportunity, then and there, to stop the attack, or would you be satisfied with the non-violent, peaceful, safe-feeling and comforting message delivered by a few small metal signs, and the protection provided by a locked door and a 3/4” thick particle board desktop? The odds, thankfully, are probably in your favor, but some people always run afoul of the odds, and there is no reason that some people cannot include your daughter.

If you would honestly choose the message and the signs, then by all means, live your convictions and post a conspicuous “WE ARE COMPLETELY UNARMED” sign on your front lawn. If you honestly wouldn’t do that, perhaps it’s time to join the ranks of those who recognize that times have changed, and that a kind of danger unique in American history faces us. Perhaps it’s time to recognize that this danger can and must be addressed, and that there is one way, and only one way, to do it effectively.

NRA Calls For Holder's Ouster for BATF "Gunrunner" Incompetence

Wayne LaPierre wants U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's resignation for the guns his agency intentionally supplied to drug dealers.

The National Rifle Association's CEO Saturday said Attorney General Eric Holder should step down for allowing an operation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to occur on his watch that involved the sale of guns to suspicious customers with ties to Mexican drug cartels.

The ATF allegedly encouraged gun dealers to sell multiple firearms to known and suspected criminals as part of a broader sting operation to crack down on gunrunning. In a speech to thousands of gun activists here, NRA chief Wayne LaPierre said two assault rifles that the ATF "let walk" were found at the crime scene where a border patrol agent was gunned down in December.

"Operation Fast and Furious may have gotten one or perhaps two federal agents killed, and countless other innocent victims have been murdered with the illegal guns that our own government allowed into Mexico all to advance a political agenda," he said.

The specific political agenda that LaPierre refers to is the oft-debunk fiction pedaled by the Obama Administration that civilian gun stores in the United States are responsible for 90-percent of the firearms the Mexican government has recovered from cartels. The actual figure is just eight-percent, and that includes the thousands of firearms that Holder's Justice Department knowing let gun smugglers take into Mexico.

"Gunwalker" AKA "Fast and Furious" was a transparent scheme by a radical President and Attorney General to create death and violence to justify more stringent gun control laws for our nation, and they were willing to put the lives of law enforcement officers and civilians on both sides of the border in jeopardy in order to do so.

Republicans in the House and Senate should hammer the White House relentlessly over the apparent crimes carried out by Obama's Justice Department. Congressional investigations and criminal charges should be investigated. At least two weapons these men gave to some of the most violent criminals in the world have been used to killed a U.S. Border Patrol Agent.

Holder is morally an accessory to murder. His resignation is the least Americans should be calling for as this scandal continues to unravel.