Now here's an interesting case

ATF agent shoots a guy in the Virgin Islands when the agent gets involved in a domestic dispute; feds give him an 'attaboy, back to work' but the VI plans to prosecute him. And the feds, including some politicians, are having fits.

Go take a look. Two interesting bits here: one,
"William Clark is a federal ATF agent who does not have peace officer status under Virgin Islands law and therefore had no authority to enforce law including the domestic violence statutes," said Sara Lezama, a spokeswoman for the Virgin Islands Department of Justice.

As a private citizen, Clark was authorized to carry a gun and use reasonable force to defend himself and others, Lezama said. But Sukow "did not inflict bodily harm on anyone the morning he was shot," she said.
I took a quick look around and found this on VI firearms law:
"A license is required to possess, transport, or carry a firearm. A purchase coupon is issued to a license applicant when the application is approved. The weapon purchased is brought in to the firearms unit of the Virgin Islands Police Department. Information about the weapon is recorded and listed on the license issued to the applicant."
The statement would indicate that Clark had gotten a permit to carry; but if he was a federal agent working in his area he wouldn't need one, would he? Which means he was carrying and acting as a private citizen, as Lezama says. Which would throw out the argument from one of our favorite statists, Sen. Schumer:
"It is well recognized that federal law enforcement officers are immune from state criminal liability for actions that are taken within the scope of their employment as federal officers," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, wrote in a letter to Gov. de Jongh. "That principle... applies with equal force in United States territories."

The Clark prosecution "has the potential to create a chilling effect on the operation of federal law enforcement throughout the United States' territories," Schumer wrote.
Can't have it both ways, Chucky;if he was there on duty he wouldn't need a locally-issued permit to carry, and if he wasn't then he should have no more immunity for his actions than any other citizen. For that matter, the 'immune from state criminal liability' is the kind of bullshit that's helped create the "We are FEDERAL Only Ones" attitude that causes such problems, and a lot of us are heartily sick of it(Horiuchi, etc.). If this guy being prosecuted causes federal agents to pay more attention to local law, I don't really see that as a bad thing.

Be interesting to see how this pans out.

Thanks to RNS for pointing to this.

And we have the line of at LEAST the day:

Pulling my stuff out of the tray, I looked back at the guard and asked, as sweetly as possible, “So, where do I go vote... for whoever's gonna fire you?”

I would damn well hope not

The 31-year old housewife who shot and killed one teenage intruder and wounded another last week in Midwest City will not face any charges.
And it's related to the post at De Coster's place the other day:
That's because Oklahoma County district attorney David Prater thinks the actions taken by Amanda Walworth were justified---she had every right to open fire on the two teenage boys after they kicked in the back door to her home.

I find that actually getting a full eight hours sleep does wonders

for the attitude. And aches. Unfortunately the shift is still going on, so it won't last long. In the meantime,
Among the reasons I despise Rep. Nancy Pelosi(NSD-CA)
By the end of 2008, Pelosi had been speaker for nearly two years. But the military was about to confront another controversy regarding her use of the Speaker Shuttle. According to a Dec. 9, 2008 military email, the Speaker Shuttle was at San Francisco International Airport as usual, waiting to take her back to Washington D.C. The email said that Pelosi wanted the jet to be moved, or "repositioned," just 51 miles away to Travis Air Force Base, closer to her Napa Valley home but far outside of her district.

"(T)he jet will not reposition to Travis," says a military official, "Jet will depart from SFO."

"(W)hy can't the jet reposition to Travis?" asks another military official. "You know this is a firestorm waiting to happen."

"We can't reposition the airplane such a short distance. It is not a judicial use of the asset. It is too expensive to operate the jet when there is truly no need to do so."
...
"We have never done this in the past. The deal is from (the Office of the Secretary of Defense and) the White House that the Speaker shuttle is from DC to SFO and back. We will not resposition. We do not reposition for convenience, even for the SECDEF (Secretary of Defense). It is not too far of a drive from Travis to SFO. Did the (Air Force) escort suggest to the Speaker that this is ok? If so, I hope you guys correct them immediately. If you agree with me that I am correct, then you need to stay strong and present the facts to the Speaker's office."

"She lives about 1.5 hours from SFO and much closer to Travis... From our point of view, it is difficult to tell the speaker that we can't support her when the whole reason we have a jet is to support her. Whether it is the best use of assets is not the question, but instead is it worth upsetting the speaker due to what really amounts to a rather minor point?"
Translation: "Pelosi will rip us all she can if we dare to 'inconvenience'her."
If you'll recall, she demanded a bigger plane than any other Speaker has ever had and her use of it has cost us a bloody fortune(according to Ace about $30k per trip, and I think that's each way), and then crap like this on top of it.


And yeah, this does smell of desperation: insult the Catholic church while trying to insult a Protestant who's running for office.


Hee, I think this would be something to give the bad guys nightmares:
More here; thanks to Theo for the pointer



debkafile's military and counter-terror sources confirm the WikiLeaks revelation that Iran developed camera-equipped suicide vests for al Qaeda's attacks on US troops under the instruction of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Center in Tehran.


Go over to Whiteboard for the rest


Among the reasons I despise Obama & Co.:
“If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,’ if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s gonna be harder and that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2.”
Hey, Mr. President: you call people the 'enemy', they're going to start acting like The Enemy; you really sure you want to turn that dial?


And last, another update on the Erik Scott murder/manslaughter, and the apparently continuing harassment of Samantha Sterner. Aren't there ANY supervisors in LVPD with the brains to put a stop to this?

Ok, I was wrong: I went by Two-Four and ran across these

The kind of crap that causes people to not like or trust the police.

What idiot actually believes THIS is how you're supposed to act? Are you supposed to kiss their shoe while they're cuffing you, too? Bleeping Jesus on a pogo stick.

And last, as he says, you make the shot count and put the threat down. Period. Someone makes grownup threats to your life, they have to live by the grownup rules. And, in such a case, die by them.

I need to stop looking at his place this late; some of that crap pisses me off enough that my already messed-up sleep cycle may be even worse, now.

Let's just say that shift work is once again kicking my ass

Reminds me of why I retired in the first place. So not much tonight, just concentrating on two pieces of BS from New York, both from NYEffingC and Bloomberg & Co. First, what these nanny-state clowns think should prevent you from being allowed to exercise a constitutional right:
§ 3–03 Grounds for Denial of Permit. An application for a rifle/shotgun permit may be denied [if] for lack of good moral character or other good cause, pursuant to section 10–303 of the Administrative Code, based on the following reasons:
(a) The applicant has been arrested, indicted or convicted for [any] a crime or violation except minor traffic violations, in any [jurisdiction,] federal, state or local jurisdiction....
(g) The applicant has a history of one or more incidents of domestic violence [note that this doesn’t require a conviction or even a finding by a court by a preponderance of the evidence, just presumably the administrative officials’ own evaluation –EV].
(h) The applicant has a poor driving history, has multiple driver license suspensions or has been declared a scofflaw by the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles....
Please note that this is not to deny a carry permit, this is to deny owning a long gun at all.
Further, catch that 'arrested, indicted or convicted for' part? If you've ever been arrested for ANYTHING, indicted for ANYTHING, even if you were never convicted or it was a bad arrest or whatever, THAT is something they think should trash your 2nd Amendment rights forever. Same on the 'domestic violence' crap; 'incidents of' can mean just about anything they want it to.
And POOR DRIVING HISTORY for Deity's sake?
And that's just part of it; go read the rest.

And from SiH,
“There’s no way I could vote on this. Since I’ve been in the council, we’ve voted on numerous bills where fees and fines were increased and it would send a strange message to New Yorkers that the one fine we look to reduce is the fee and fine to permit a gun,” Councilman Erik Dilan (D-Brooklyn), who did not attend the caucus, said.
So pay a FINE to get a gun permit? Oh, that's just so full of Fail it's amazing.


Unrelated to NYE'C, I was thinking: my first job was at a motorcycle shop, my second an assistant janitor, the third cleanup and delivery at a blood bank and then into dispatch and my later career; the dispatch and beyond had shift work- 29 years of it- and the blood bank I was on call every other week for getting blood to hospitals when an emergency happened or they ran short. So except for two part-time jobs I've done shift work my whole adult life. Damn.

Among the reasons I despise politicians

But the bottom line remains that this story was a desperation measure by partisan Republicans, who have stooped to slinging mud about junior staffers to score points in the waning days of her campaign.”
Yeah, perjury and violation of immigration laws, let's see, “an uncharged coconspirator in the crime of perjury, filing false immigration documents, the crime of sham marriage.” is all a 'desperation messure', 'slinging mud', etc.

Manley, you're nothing more than a standard-issue canker on the national ass.
The highest level of management inside the Department of Homeland Security was aware that she worked for Reid, multiple sources confirmed, and following protocol, the majority leader should have been informed of the investigation through those channels, as well.

But in July 2009, when an ICE agent testifying at Tarhini’s preliminary deportation hearing was asked specifically about Tejada’s employer, the agent did not say it was the U.S. Senate.
ICE Special Agent Rebecca Perkins: “Currently she is employed with the — a Hispanic center organization.”
Tarhini's Defense Counsel, Jeffrey Byers: “Is that La Raza? Does that sound familiar?"
Perkins: “I don’t know.”
Byers: “It’s a — it’s a — it's something that is a public service group for the Hispanic community. Is that a fair statement, or something to that degree?”
Perkins: “Yes”
Translation: "She works for Senator Reid, but we're not supposed to say that."

Bleep.

For the moment let's ignore the DOJ not doing its job;

there's at least one full level of politicians in IL who should be in jail. At the least.

Now back to DOJ: Every bureaucrat involved in helping IL keep this crap going should be immediately fired. And have to return their pay for about, oh, the last six months or so; if they weren't doing the damned job, they shouldn't profit by it.

This is promising

The massive movement of intelligence gathering and analyzing forces from Iraq to Afghanistan in the last two years is paying off by cutting Taliban supplies of weapons, and money. More and more captured (often from dead Taliban) weapons and ammunition is of poor quality. Explosives, even the stuff made from ammonium nitrate fertilizer, is harder to get, and often used in smaller quantities in order to make more roadside bombs. That, in turn, is just getting more Taliban killed, including many more leaders. ...These are increasingly more dangerous because the Americans have more UAVs, along with camera towers and aerostats (tethered blimps) that can see for long distances, day or night and in any weather. It's not just that the cameras can pick up some guys planting a bomb (and call in an air strike), but can detect suspicious movement of any kind. The terrorists are creatures of habit, and the intelligence software can detect habits.

Google can take that 'Don't be evil' crap and shove it

Earlier this year the California-based firm admitted that the cars' antennae had also scanned for wireless networks, including home wi-fi, which connect millions of personal computers to the internet.

Google registered the location, name and identification code of millions of networks and entered them into a database to help it sell adverts.

The firm - which uses the slogan 'Don't be evil' - was able to record the location of every wireless router and network without alerting households because wi-fi signals are 'visible' to other internet devices, including the cars' antennae.

Google played down the significance of the wi-fi mapping and insisted it had not collected or stored data from personal computers.

It then backtracked and said its software had 'inadvertently' collected fragments of data (remember that phrase)which were being transmitted as the cars criss-crossed Britain.

The cars' antennae skipped networks five times a second, it said, meaning each network was only accessed for one-fifth of a second.

But it has now emerged that entire emails, web pages and passwords were copied and stored during that split-second.
And Google is oh, so upset! that this happened. And it was all an accident, etc. Reason I have a hard time trusting this?
In the past year alone he has:

* Addressed criticisms of Google’s stance on privacy by saying, “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”
* Claimed people want Google to “tell them what they should be doing next.”
* Said of Google, “We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.”
* Said this: “One day we had a conversation where we figured we could just try to predict the stock market. And then we decided it was illegal. So we stopped doing that.”
* Suggested name changes to protect adults from the Web’s record of their youthful indiscretions.
* Said this: “What we’re really doing is building an augmented version of humanity, building computers to help humans do the things they don’t do well better.”
...
And Schmidt’s far from done. Appearing on CNN’s “Parker Spitzer” program last week, he said that people who don’t like Google’s Street View cars taking pictures of their homes and businesses “can just move” afterward to protect their privacy. Ironically, he said this on the very day that Google admitted those cars captured more than just fragments of personal payload data.
Add this to Google sucking up to the PRC and selling out bloggers, and there's no good reason to believe them, or trust them to completely delete the information they 'accidentally' sucked up.
“We want to delete this data as soon as possible, and I would like to apologize again for the fact that we collected it in the first place,” wrote Alan Eustace, a senior vice president of engineering and research.
"We WANT to"... Not "We WILL", but "WANT to". I've been listening to politicians too long to trust that 'WANT' to mean they WILL.

Two things to note this evening: one standard leftist idiocy,

the other sufficient to call for various politicians to be removed from office. For even proposing it.

First, the tea parties are full of racists and lynch mob mentality; it's the ONLY explanation, of course.

Second, a bunch of brainless fools have apparently decided it's just too hard to expect people here legally to become citizens; so they should be allowed to vote anyway.

I'm tired, and achy, so I'll leave it to you to generate words of outrage.

This is not an election on November 2.

This is a restraining order. Power has been trapped, abused and exploited by Democrats. Go to the ballot box and put an end to this abusive relationship. And let’s not hear any nonsense about letting the Democrats off if they promise to get counseling.
That first two sentences has to be the Lines Of The Week. At least.

At this point, I wouldn't trust the Los Vegas Police Department

for ANYTHING. About ANYTHING. The latest piece on the Erik Scott probable murder(ok, could be manslaughter) is enough to cause RCOB, and cause people who tend to reflexively trust the police to think hard about changing their minds.

You really have to read the whole thing, there's no way to excerpt it. Though I will borrow two parts, as display of pure, petty bullshit malice on the part of LVPD:
When the Sig finally arrived, the slide was jammed open, intentional damage requiring repair, more money imposed on the Scott family by Las Vegas authorities. All of these items could have been returned directly to Sterner, incurring no expense for the Scott family, but Sterner had to remain, to the authorities, a non-person who had no interest in the home or its contents that she shared with Scott.
and
A particularly disturbing pattern has recently emerged. Sterner has, in the last two weeks (circa late October, 2010), received two traffic tickets from Metro Police, and several friends and supporters of Sterner and the Scott family have been followed, several for great distances, distances that would eliminate the possibility that such following was mere coincidence, by the Police. In each case, there was a common factor: Each vehicle displayed the distinctive red, white and blue remembrance ribbon distributed in memory of Erik Scott to the rear.

While it is possible that Ms. Sterner has merely had an unusual run of bad luck in her driving habits, this too, like so much about this case, is unusual, questionable. Most people can drive for many years, even decades, without a single citation. But the unusual has become the commonplace in this case. What is most disturbing about this Police behavior is that it is counter to common sense and to professional Police practice, again, as so many of their actions in this case seem to have been.
Just flat effing disgusting.

Soros really buys lots of devotion with his money,

don't he?
News that Juan Williams' contract with NPR was terminated over comments he made about Muslims while appearing on Fox News shines a spotlight on the radio network's evergreen controversy: Its continued affiliation with Fox News. Specifically, NPR's Mara Liasson and her long-running association with Fox News has often raised questions. This might be the proper time for NPR to finally address that thorny issue.

I'm not suggesting Liasson has said anything as offensive as Williams, or that she has that kind of track record while appearing on Fox. I'm just saying that if you look at NPR's code of ethics, there's simply no way Liasson should be making appearances on Fox
Translation: "She hasn't actually done anything we can hang her for, but just showing up on Fox should be enough for NPR to fire her, too. That way we can cleanse NPR of people willing to not toe the line."

Interesting, isn't it? Lefties and 'progressives' who like to scream about 'free speech' and 'tolerance' and 'inclusiveness' doing everything they can to silence liberals who'll show up on a network the lefties don't like...

And as for them constantly calling conservative people racist,

"Juan Williams’ firing did not happen in a vacuum. It happened in the context of him having been the official Fox News lawn jockey stooge for years."

Oh, he did a strike-through, so he didn't really mean it and it's not a firing offense, right?

Note: Based on the comments over there, it appears the strike-through was added only after people complained, so yes, the author did intend to call Juan Williams a "lawn jockey," and yes, as one of my readers commented, the folks who run Balloon-Juice also are the first to call conservatives racist.

If you've heard about the probably hit piece CNBC is planning

on Remington, Weerd has this:

I'm going to have to stop looking at Joan Peterson's place;

it's just too damned frustrating to see her pull the same crap over and over and over. At times you can't tell if she's actually too damn stupid to see what people are pointing out, or doesn't care, or is just willing to lie to push her agenda. And the constant outbreaks of Reasoned Discourse^tm don't help, either.

'Course, it's possible Mr. Huffman is right; there's a mental defect involved...

As far as I'm concerned, crap like this means Rep. Dan Boren(NSP-OK)

ought to be thrown out of that office.
A bill introduced by Representative Dan Boren has firearm owners and gun control supporters in a shootout.

The bill would begin a study into firearm microstamping.

Rep. Boren, you suck. I don't care what the NRA thinks of you, crap like this we don't need; and you pushing it means we don't need YOU.


Added: saw this over at SiH, which says about the same thing Sigivald says in comments. I know sometimes I'm too quick to react to things; boils down in this case to
Boren is a Democrat who's voted with Obama on some things that make me distrust him,
When it comes to possible threats to the 2nd, I just have no damned trust anymore.
I need to work on the latter.

Before I get to some of the idiocy I hate having to write about,

I'd like to thank those who left kind thoughts in that post; much appreciated.

On the current bigoted idiocy, if you haven't heard about the firing of Juan Williams by NPR/PBS, go look it up; won't be hard.

Back? Ok, so Williams went on a Fox show and basically said when he sees some muslims on an airplane, acting certain ways, post-9/11 it makes him nervous. For that he was fired(it gets better) for 'not meeting their standards'. 'Standards' of a bunch who had no problem with this, and similar crap. We know exactly why he was fired, he stepped outside the allowed limits of what the NPR assholes consider 'proper' free speech. Disgusting, and their excuses are just as bad.

And THEN, just to make it even more fun, the CEO of NPR came out with this crap as part of her justification:
“Juan Williams should have kept his feelings about Muslims between himself and his psychiatrist or his publicist.”
My first thought when I read this: "Oh, you really paid attention to the Soviets, didn't you? "Obviously someone who says such a thing has mental problems and needs help." So you go out and make that idiot statement; were you planning to report him for the kind of involuntary commitment your Soviet friends used on people who said unapproved things? Or isn't that available to you as yet?

My first thought about the original event- the firing- was "Mr. Williams, you've now been called a bigot etc. for speaking unapproved thoughts; welcome to the damn club, and how do you like it?" From a couple of things I've read he does appreciate the situation, which is nice.

Screw NPR and PBS; get their hand out of the public purse, especially since they've openly shown this kind of bias and desire to squelch free speech.

Quote I found over at Classical Values:
Williams' firing is a clarifying moment in media mores. You can be Islamophobic, in the form of refusing to run the most innocuous imaginable political cartoons out of a broad-brush fear of Muslims, but you can't admit it, even when the fear is expressed as a personal feeling and not a group description, winnowed down to the very specific and nightmare-exhuming act of riding on an airplane, and uttered in a context of otherwise repudiating collective guilt and overbroad fearmongering.

Before I shut this down for the night, in reference to my previous posts'

comments on law enforcement, Confederate Yankee has some of the latest on the Erik Scott case. I'm going to post part of it, which has both lowered my opinion of LVPD and convinced me that they KNOW the shooting was basically the murder of a man:
The Police have asserted that the Ruger .380 ACP pistol reportedly found in Erik’s pocket by firefighter/medic Chris Thorpe constituted a crime, but the evidence of that “crime,” the pistol itself, was already in the hands of the police if their account of the incident is accurate. It may not be. All available evidence--to say nothing of common sense and constitutionally sound police procedure--indicates that Erik’s home had nothing whatever to do with any crime, nor did any of its contents. It was the home of a man the police shot and killed. That home was under the lawful control of Sterner, his joint tenant. The police knew this. Deputy Public Administrator Grodin knew this. The police had no lawful reason to enter or search Erik’s home or to take any property within. I am aware that I have repeated this point more than once. As Shakespeare said, there is method in my madness.

Experienced investigators listening to the voice of the PA Deputy Grodin on the You Tube recording would hear what I heard: A man running a bluff and running it badly. Unless he was incompetent (or under pressure?), Grodin would surely know the limits of his authority, and would also know, as has been admitted, that being accompanied by the police was unusual. He would have known that he had no authority to enter Erik’s home despite his bluff to the contrary, to say nothing of seizing his property, and would have understood that he could never, absent committing blatant perjury on an affidavit, have obtained a warrant. Realistically, he would likely have had no idea how to find and complete an affidavit to obtain a warrant as this is, in all probability, not a usual requirement of his daily duties.

The police would know how to obtain a warrant. They would know without a doubt that they had no legitimate reason and no lawful authority for a search and that obtaining a warrant would require a perjured affidavit, an original affidavit bearing their false assertions and an officer’s signature that would be on file with the court, difficult or impossible to control. In addition, as previously mentioned, the warrant return would have to specify each item seized which would then have to be entered into the police evidence system. All or any of these documents, if indicative of perjury or any other crime, would point directly at them and could lead to dismissal, prosecution and incarceration.

So why did the police contact the PA’s Office? Why did they enlist their aid? Why were they desperate to enter Erik’s home and seize property despite knowing that Sterner had joint tenancy and that they had no reason to be there and no lawful authority to conduct a search?
Go read all of it, but I warn you it's pretty much more of a RCOB piece. Especially with the next paragraph:
Part of the answer is suggested by the fact that after illegally searching the house and illegally removing property, they changed the locks and kept the key, locking Sterner out of her home until Kevin Scott was able to obtain the key at least a day later. The services of the PA’s office and the locksmith cost Erik’s family hundreds of dollars. Scott’s family were billed for the arguably illegal actions of PA Deputy Grodin and the Metro Police. Why did they believe it necessary to keep Sterner out of her home, to have unrestricted, unobserved time alone in that home before she was allowed to return to it?

And, Mr. Steve Grodin, it appears you are a shit. A miserable little shit, and I hope the family sues you for everything you have or ever will have for your part in this.

I know I throw out a lot of words on political crap,

but there's a whole lot more I don't talk about; for every article or post I mention(I know, that means 'bitch and whine and scream about') there's at least two or three I don't.

Combination of reasons. I never intended this to be a political blog, but it's turned partly into one. Partly because there's just not enough time to write about all the things that either outrage or delight me. And because, when you get down to it, my primary feeling toward politics tends to be "Would you people just LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE?!?"

I don't LIKE writing about corrupt, vicious little bastards like Barney Frank, and arrogant fools like John Effing Kerry, and very often flat stupid people like Maxine Waters. And when some tool like Trent Lott mouths off about how 'these tea party people will need to be properly controlled by the Party', and Corker starts talking about 'Oh no, we won't really try to get rid of Obamacare!', and some other Stupid Party tool talks about how friendly and helpful the Democrats will be... Sometimes I do scream at the screen. And have thoughts involving ropes with thirteen loops, or just a nice, simple firing squad. I'm effing sick to death of ALL these people who want to run my damn life. And my kids lives, and everyone else's. And if they'd just leave us alone, I'd let them kiss each others' asses and make deals and whatever all day long.

But they won't leave us alone. Some are socialist assholes who demand everyone be controlled by the state- with themselves in charge, of course- 'for our own good', some are just plain greedy powerbrokers who want to be in charge. And all of them want our money and our devotion and our lives. I am heartily fucking sick of them all.

And I flat hate the God-damned crap from various supporters. I've got a friend who can almost excuse almost ANYTHING done by a Evil Party member, but a Stupid Party member says or does almost anything, and it's "You dirty politician! You're crooked!", etc. Which wouldn't bother me as much except for his tending to consider me 'one of his Republican friends', despite my pointing out I've been giving 'R' party bastards harsh words for longer than he has. I'm sick to death of liberals and 'progressives' who think that if you don't agree with them, it means you're actually evil, that you hate, that you somehow want people to die. Preferably in poverty and misery.

And I really, truly deeply hate the fact that I can't trust one damned word that comes out of the major media. Movies, tv, actual(supposed to be) NEWS shows. I wrote once about what really got my attention about the hoplophobes; before that, when I was a kid and heard something on the news, or pushed by some tv show character that I flat KNEW was not true, I just didn't know what to think: "But that's not true, why are they saying it?" Far worse when it was a Professional News Reporter doing it; it took a long time to fully realize that, understand that, these people- supposed to be devoted to reporting news- would metaphorically and literally look you in the face and lie to you; to support their personal views, to help a politician they liked, whatever. And you know what? It still rouses me to actual fury when they do it.

Back when Rush Limbaugh first came on the radio in this area I'd never heard of him(on KTOK, if you're interested). Started listening, and it was incredible; here was a guy with a NATIONAL show actually saying a lot of the things I thought and- far more important- giving me more information than I'd had before. As in lots of parts of stories that I didn't hear anywhere else(pre-internet days for me), filling in holes; I'd have heard a news story about some incident or bill that I knew was leaving something out, or just didn't sound right, and now I got the parts ABC/NBC/CBS had left out, without having to wait a month or two for some magazine article to mention it. Which both enlightened me about a lot of news, and once again rubbed my nose in the fact that these people like Dan Rather and Peter Jennings and such were often flat lying to us, either directly or by omission. A lot of you know firsthand just how that destroys your previous trust in the 'news'; it makes you suspicious of EVERYTHING that comes out of their mouth.

The internet is both blessing and curse in all this: it allows you to dig up information the former gatekeepers don't want you to know, it allows you to cross-check what you hear and read, which is good; it also shoves right in your face the disdain and contempt these people, often referred to as 'elites', have for us. Also educational, and in some ways even more enraging than simply being lied to.

Speaking of which, a few days ago I read about the Democrats plans for a lame-duck session, some of the things they would like to do, including stealing peoples' pension accounts so they can use the money to pay off various unions and increase the government's control over us. And theft it is: seizing private property just because they want to.I have to wonder, what's in their minds? Do they actually believe everyone will yell a while and then quietly accept it? Or do they think that when some people do act that the security forces(EffingBI, Secret Service, etc.) will stomp on anyone who does and cow everyone else? At this point it would not surprise me in the least to find that some of these bastards WANT that to happen, WANT some excuse to order government agents to imprison and kill some people 'to encourage the rest of us' to behave properly. Do you have any idea how far these people have pushed me that I'm willing to believe this of some of them? For that matter, do the various LE agencies understand just how low their star has fallen that people like me believe- know in some cases- that they would simply accept their orders and trot off to carry them out? You've got cops in Maryland shooting people's dogs 'as a threat' even when they have to chase the dog down to kill it; think these sorry excuses for lawmen would hesitate to carry out orders from their political masters? I lost a lot of my confidence in the National Guard when I saw NG troops helping hold people at gunpoint in New Orleans because the mayor and police chief had decreed that the peasants could not be trusted with arms, not to mention the sight of an old lady being beaten by a couple of shits in police uniforms just for having a gun. I grew up around LE people, and it really hurts to have my confidence in them as generally good guys ripped up. Not to mention the fact that I cannot trust the good cops to hold the bad ones to account when they're corrupt or screw up("Yes, the officers killed an innocent person when they raided the wrong address, but they were following use of force guidelines so no action will be taken against them. Sorry about the dogs, too, but it's procedure.")

What this is all leading up to is I'm sick to death of all of it. I'm sick of not being able to trust a damned word that comes out of the major media; I'm sick of not being able to trust that LE officers will follow the damned law themselves; I'm sick at the knowledge that a lot of people in uniform will just follow their orders even when they know they're wrong; and I'm very deep-down-in-my-soul sick of corrupt, lying, condescending politicians. And I'm very very sick at heart that none of us can afford to NOT watch them and listen to all this and yell about it to make sure others know. Because we don't know when it might be some little bit of knowledge-spreading by someone out there that lights enough of a fire to keep something from going over the edge.

So if I'm not my usual sparkling self this past while, that's a large chunk of why.

This bitching session is now ended.