"Arbitrary and Capricious."

I don't drink sugar soft drinks*. Oh, I love them, but I came to grips a long time ago with the fact that I have to watch my calorie intake, and that I'm a slob. That slob part references the fact that sugar drinks make everthing sticky, once they spill. I spill. I know this about myself, and I've taken the measure of avoiding sugary drinks. Also, there is the fact that two of my immediate family have adult-onset diabetes. While my sugar levels are good, I don't care to tempt fate. So, in addition to unsweetened coffee and tea, I will often enjoy a cold diet soda.

It has likely been 20 years or more since I had a Big Gulp full of sugary soft drink.

I tell you this to explain that it is not any kind of personal addiction to high-fructose corn syrup-laden beverages that makes me so very pleased with the ruling of Justice Milton A. Tingling Jr. of New York's State Supreme Court in Manhatten, when he recently struck down our largest city's ban on large sugared soft drinks.

In his ruling, Justice Tingling made clear that the ordinance was not only questionable in its justification, but in its jurisdiction, as well. The city of New York's Board Of Health was interpretting its own jurisdiction to be whatever it said it was. 

That interpretation, the judge wrote, “would leave its authority to define, create, mandate and enforce limited only by its own imagination,” and “create an administrative Leviathan.”

The schadenfreude. It tastes sweet.

Are you listening, Feds?

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*As a general rule, this is the case. About twice a year, I will indulge in a nice cold Coca-Cola, especially when in the company of friends, and when a dram or two of rum and perhaps a lime might be involved.

Bloomberg's logic:

Mayor (only mayor? Wait-- that can't be right! I mean, my map of New York City shows that it ends 'way up northeast of here... surely he has more jurisdiction than that...) Michael Bloomberg tells us that the nation's police should go on strike for harsher gun laws.

So let me get this straight: The mayor wants police to refuse to come to work, because they are supposed to believe, like he does, that if a citizen is in trouble, they should call the police, whom he has encouraged to ditch work?

Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-hah no.

I rather liked Hoge's point of view on it: HizHonor's bodyguards are police, right? They should go on strike first.

Wink-wink. Nudge-nudge.

One rule that I was taught early as a peace officer writing probable cause affidavits is the Four Corners Doctrine. Simply put, if the information is not put within the four corners of the sheet[s] of paper that the affidavit is written upon, the judge may not consider it.  If I charge Mr. Smith with Assault Causes Bodily Injury With Prior Conviction, I had darned well better mention his prior conviction for Assault CBI in that PC affidavit. I know of a judge who fairly recently threw out a PC on this doctrine, when the officer charged the defendant with Dischage Firearm In Certain Municipalities, but forgot to mention that the city was over 100,000 people. (Everyone knew that town had over 100,000 people, but the officer didn't mention it.)
It makes sense, though-- if it hasn't been testified to, the judge may not consider it.

Looking at the Arizona law SB1070 (which empowered Arizona law enforcement to make on-view warrantless arrests of individuals where there illegally, for violation of the new state law against being in Arizona illegally), we see that, first shake out of the box, it forbade enforcement based on ethnicity or race in black letter law. Yet concerns about harassment of people based upon race and ethnicity were exactly what got its opponents upset. A cynical person might also say that some were concerned that, even without harrassment based on race or ethnicity, some opponents were simply concerned that the law might actually be effective, in detaining and eventually deporting people not legally in this country.
But when the feds challenged the state law and brought it to the Supreme Court of this nation, the racial/ethnic issue wasn't brought up.

Although some critics of the law have contended that it would inevitably lead to targeting of Latinos simply because of appearance, speaking Spanish, or having a Spanish accent, Verrilli told the justices on April 25 “We're not making any allegation about racial or ethnic profiling in the case."

When the federal attorneys challenging a state enforcement law bring no allegation about race or ethnic oppression to court, that's because they haven't got any evidence supporting that issue.

But the law was struck down in all ways but one: state-appointed police are still permitted to enforce the federal immigration laws. The new provisions that it be illegal on a state level to seek work as an undocumented alien, and that that aliens must register with the state, and that Arizona law enforcement may make warrantless arrests of undocumented aliens for violation of the state law-- these were struck down.

The reasoning given by Justices Kennedy, Roberts, Ginsburg, Breyer and Sotomayor, was that the state must not usurp the federal authority. We already have laws about that. Huh. We have federal laws about drugs, and bank robbery, and a thousands of other things that are redundant on the state level. But this one, we must see overturned. But it's not about race or ethnicity.

The dissent given by Thomas and Scalia and Alito (all notably conservative or libertarian justices) is that there is state sovereingty to consider. The Arizona governor strangely claimed this as a victory for the 10th Amendment.

But it's not about race or ethnicity.

The passing of conservatives.

My conservative friends often think that I'm a damned liberal, and my liberal friends either think that I'm an uber-conservative fascist pig, or that I'm a bag of self-contradictions.
Let me make this clear: I don't take my stance to be contrary, or to "stand out and be different." I would LOVE to be able to side with a great big majority.

But right now, the two majorities are:
--people who think that it's more fair, and even intellectual, to distribute everything but rights.
--people who think that we should not distribute the wealth, but still should assert control over others' rights.

I've said all this before.
Lately, I've been thinking how great it would be to see an openly atheist or agnostic candidate run for President. I think all of the discussions about a candidate's fitness to lead, based upon his religion, are bollocks. Given that I want the President not to impose his religion upon the nation, I'd prefer him or she to keep their yap shut on the issue. The same goes with information about his marriage.

Let's do this, shall we? Let's get to reducing the interference that the government has in our lives, and reducing the expenditures. Let's just drop the social issues for a bit, shall we?

And while we're at it (and Republicans, I'm talking to you, because even though you're screwed beyond belief with your mix of social interference and laissez-faire party planks, you're still the only big party willing to attempt to be the Grownups in the room, so I lean faintly in your direction.), let's quit listening to idiots like Rush Limbaugh, who had me at "why should I pay?" (a legit question) but lost me at "lemme see you nekkid."

Oh, and finally, as a person who leans TEA Party and Libertarian, I propose that we mourn the untimely passing of Andrew Breitbart. He raised interesting points, and flew in the faces even of a lot of Conservatives. He challenged the status quo. His passing diminishes the exchange.

If you've been employing a troupe of glaziers to frame your house,

...then you might want to desist from viewing every stone as a hand-heaved projectile.

"We apologize that our selfish requests to marry those we love has cheapened and degraded traditional marriage so much that we caused you to stray from your own holy union for something more cheap and tawdry."

 Dare I say it twice in one week? The Republican party might want to rein in and just kinda focus on the budget, because lately it's looking like mud on social issues.


__________________
H/T to Unc.

Self-Justification

Tam, as she often does, hit the nail on the head:

"Having a dedicated Agency responsible for "gun crimes" creates an incentive to find and, if necessary, manufacture gun crimes in order to justify their existence."

It is not because I'm a generalist that I am annoyed at the BATF. Hey, I'm all for specialization, in complicated areas. I just recently did a sexual assault investigation with the assistance of a larger city investigator who specializes in that, specifically on children. (And bless his heart for that. I would get burnt out within about 2 months of that work.) Two weeks ago, I provided some intel to a detective who specializes in copper theft. (Note: detectives who work in such areas are GOLD MINES for info on the meth trade in their area.) When I have a financial crime, I know just the detective to call on for help, and she's brilliant. Time to lift fingerprints? I call a neighboring crime lab. Specialization makes sense, in a lot of areas. Those fellows are better at it than I am, due to their familiarity with the topic. They are all subject matter experts.

Large cities generally break down their police department's investigative bureaus into sections like Property Crime, Violent Crime, Sex Crimes, Juvenile Crime, and Homicide. That's fine; there has to be some way to delegate cases. But when you create an entire agency that specializes in a specific type of crime, you run into problems. What if that type of crime is down that year? Their budget could be in jeopardy.

The problem is compounded when the premise of the crime fighting is in question, in the first place.

But we have a system in this nation, good or bad, that dictates how guns are sold from dealers. It's hackneyed, but it's followed. As FFL licencees are generally quite law-abiding folks, the prospect of committing felonies rightfully scares hell out of them. So obvious straw purchases are not permitted. Clear felonies in firearms purchases are denied. Unless. Unless the aforementioned hackneyed system is intentionally sabotaged by the agency ordering its use, to create more crimes for that agency to investigate.

This would be akin to the FBI ordering that the back door to banks be left unlocked, and the vaults be left ajar, with the alarm passcode be scrawled in pencil on the wall next to the door.

I believe that I've mentioned before that using numbers to try to promote your own crime-fighting agency is a double-edged sword. Trying to pump them up is a Bad Idea, friends. Look, you chief administrators: You're spin doctors, right? Right. If crime stats are down, we all know that you can just say "Look at what an effective job that we've done! Our agency needs more resources to continue in our quest to stamp out crime!" And if crime stats are up, you get to sound the alarm that "Now, more than ever, we need more resources to fight the growing trend of crime!" You can serve it up either way. We all know that.

You don't have to make more. Got it?
_______

While at a nearby police range recently, I had to wait for the local ATF agents to finish their stuff. One of them, a friendly lady agent, chatted with me for a few minutes. I enjoyed our talk, but wondered if she was as annoyed by my shirt as I was by her hat. Her aftermarket custom hat was similar the standard ATF ballcap, but with the words "Mt. Carmel" embroidered in smaller letters below the agency letters. Marvy.

She didn't remark on my shirt, which I had ordered a decade ago through the assistance of the now-famous author and then fellow TFL denizen, Larry Correia:


I don't know if she understood the meaning behind the words "MOLON LABE." If she did, I suspect that she would have been confused as to why I, a cop, ordered the shirt, and why I, a cop, still wear the shirt.

Meanwhile, I don't have to guess whether the sentiment would have been understood by the Texas Ranger recently seen in the area with the Gonzales battle flag scrimshawed on the outside grip panel of his ivory stocks of his 1911 pistol.

But there I go, taking up for generalists. :)

We can do better than this.

I've cussed people while in uniform, before. I'm not proud of it. As a matter of fact, I'm generally ashamed of it. But it's happened.

The most recent circumstance was as I was investigating a Visiting Burglar who was loitering around downtown at 3:00 AM, with a car full of burglary tools. I casually asked him his name, and he lied to me. I knew it. He knew that I knew it, and my cover officer knew it. When a check of that name and date of birth came back as "No Record Found," (strange for a guy covered with prison gang tattoos), I investigated until my cover officer discovered V.B.'s real illustrious past, and that V.B. had a warrant. I told V.B. to turn around, so that I could pat him down. I asked him carefully and clearly if he had anything on him that could cut me or poke me. He assured me that he didn't.

The last pocket that I checked had a used syringe in it.

"What the f**k?!? G*dD***it, you said that you didn't have anything like that! S**t!" I blurted out. He began to apologize profusely.

Now, I have to admit that I'm scared of being poked by used needles from a guy like this, who was in fact a bug-carrier. Still, I should have conducted myself more professionally. If my chief or city council or one of my citizens ask me about this, I shall have to apologize for my actions. I already have apologized to the arrestee, just before I took him to jail, as a matter of fact. Apologizing for unprofessionalism doesn't excuse it, but it's the second step* in beginning to make it a little better.

_ _ _ _

Friend Gay Cynic passed on this little video of a Canton, OH police officer losing his mind over what he perceived as a late notification by a concealed carry license holder during the traffic stop.

I haven't watched the whole video, because I got to 9:08 before I couldn't listen to any more.** This isn't a "days off" offense. This is a "pack your stuff, and move on" offense. I would actually consult with the city attorney to consider charges against the officer for terroristic threats made against the driver. As a street cop, I'm disgusted at this.



______________________________
*Everyone knows the first step, right?
**Okay, I've listened to a bit more. It gets worse.

That's not fair! You've got more!

It's not fair that I don't have a new car, but you do.
It's not fair that my house is old, but yours is bigger and newer.
It's not fair that my hair is receding while I'm still in my 30's.
It's not fair that I can't fit in the same clothes as you.
It's not fair that I have a size 18 boot (when I can find one) without FULL compensation elsewhere.
It's not fair that, as a child, I had an allergy to wheat.
It's not fair that I had to work when my friends played.
It's not fair that I work nights while my friends work regular shifts.
It's not fair that you have more money than me.
It's not fair that you have more than I do, and I have less than you do.

It's not fair.

And now you're telling me that we don't have enough money to give me more, when you clearly have more than me? That's not fair.

First, we are not either broke. And second, it's not fair that you have more than me:

As Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) pointed out in a little-noticed but powerful speech on the economy in December, “during the past 20 years, 56 percent of all income growth went to the top 1 percent of households. Even more unbelievably, a third of all income growth went to just the top one-tenth of 1 percent.” Some people are definitely not broke, yet we can’t even think about raising their taxes.

Well, duh! There's PLENTY of money-- it's just that you elites* have taken it all.


This, my friends, is how we delude ourselves into giving up capitalism for socialism.

__________________________________________
*Defined as "those who have more than I deem to be appropriate."

Proving his point, exactly.

I've always prided myself on being able to look at and try to understand the opposing viewpoint, even when I don't agree with it. Sometimes it's admittedly for irritainment, but often I'll review a viewpoint that I may believe is largely biased, in search of actual content. For the last 18 years, I've listened to a lot of National Psocialist Radio. I can't help it-- the stories are longer, the soundbites are longer, and sometimes the stuff in insightful. Other times while shouting at my windshield, I would have to call it incite-ful.

While Nina Totenberg and the rest can drive me nuts with their bias on occasions, I've generally been pretty impressed with one of their news commentators, Juan Williams. Don't misunderstand me-- I disagree with his views a lot. But I've respectfully disagreed with the man. He's not an idiot. He doesn't just parrot PC speech. But he's by no means on any particular wing of the political spectrum.

I was a bit surprised to learn that Fox News had him as a political contributor, but apparently, they hired him before they had decided to become The Voice Of The New Conservative. (Yes, I'm just as irritated at Fox as I am at NPR. Maybe more so, because Fox doesn't even hide that they're bending their broadcasts right, apparently in an attempt to straighten out the left-biased other reporting.)

It didn't surprise me at all that Juan Williams would be on as a guest on "The O'Reilly Factor." After all, Bill O'Reilly routinely takes on guests that he disagrees with, lets them say something that he finds discordant, and then talks over them, drowning them out to the glee of his followers. It's so common, it's hardly even an ambush anymore, as anyone that he interviews that has even seen his show knows that he's going to do it.

I suppose that Juan Williams thought that, given his other status as a paid commentator for Fox News, he would get a little professional courtesy out of Bill O'Reilly, and would be allowed to finish his point before being interrupted in a discussion about whether it was correct to generalize all Muslims as dangerous. Williams, who was making the point that it was wrong to make such sweeping generalizations, opened a comment with a disclosure of how he personally had a long way to go before he could drop his own stereotypes, citing an example of how he had felt uncomfortable on an airplane with several traditionally-dressed Muslim persons. He was then cut off, and that comment was left to hang, out of context.

Today, NPR has fired Juan Williams, saying remarks "were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR."

Apparently, the Council on American-Islamic Relations had complained.

I'm confused. The NRA has complained about how Nina Totenberg has shown blatant anti-2nd Amendment bias in her statements, but she hasn't been fired. (For that matter, the only time she has been fired was when she got caught plagiarizing, back in the '70s.) So you can rail against a constitutionally-guaranteed right on-air, but not candidly admit elsewhere (in a non-journalistic capacity) that you are overcoming personal biases that you find distasteful?

The meat of what Juan Williams was arguing with Bill O'Reilly about, at the time of the discussion at issue, was political correctness. And as Alan said to me this morning, "of course, NPR proves his point about paralyzing political correctness."

And so it goes.

Perhaps I Haven't Made Myself Clear.

In comments, someone said, regarding my post about Glenn Beck:

"You note that the nation is great today.

You are either not who I thought or quite blind to where we are. I am sorry for either. I would prefer that you learn a bit more(yes, ignoring his religious points before making a blanket judgment.

After all, he is the only one tracking the very dirty laundry in the White House."

I would submit that, if you haven't figured out that I love this nation, then you haven't been paying attention.

And if you think that Glenn Beck is the only watchdog on the White House, then you might consider broadening your view.

Have we forgotten?

New friend Jennifer riffs on the controversy of the new mosque being built "at Ground Zero."

Hey, I'm offended by the concept that the new mosque might be considered a "victory mosque," too.

But I'm more offended at the concept of forbidding its erection.

The protection that this country has afforded to religion through the First Amendment has been pretty strong. And with good reason. It was literally the VERY FIRST right guaranteed in the Bill Of Rights:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Let's not forget those rights of freedom of speech and of peaceable assembly, either.

Folks are critical of Obama for saying that they have the right to put up a mosque there (2.5 blocks away from the site of the former World Trade Center towers.). While it pains me to defend our current President, I have to admit that he's right.

If you're one of those people saying "They shouldn't be allowed to put a mosque there! That's hallowed ground!", then I wonder: just how far out should this Zone Of Sacredness extend? 5 blocks? 10 blocks? All of the island of Manhattan? How about we just ban them from New York City?

And even if you back it down to "well, I just don't want it within sight of the building*" consider that you're still putting restrictions on an entire religion's right to assemble where they want. What about when your religion isn't the flavor of the month? Do you really want the government telling you that your money isn't green enough to purchase a plat of land, and erect a building to code, and peaceably do with it as you please?

I know some Muslims. None of them was happy on 9/11/01. None of them had a damned thing to do with anyone who had a damned thing to do with the attacks on our nation. I'm trying to figure out how telling them that they can't build their place of worship where they want is going to be patriotic.

If you're going to try to claim that "They hate us for our freedoms," then you best extend those freedoms, whether you like it or not.

While flawed, this republic is still great. It's strong enough to withstand the act of upholding the freedoms that it guarantees.
_____________________
*The new tower, formerly called the "Freedom Tower," is to be 1,776 feet tall, which is well over a quarter mile high.

This is getting old.

The most common (and apparently powerful) attack on the Tea Party movement that the Obama supporters have is race. You don't like the current administration, and some of you who are critical have been outspoken racists. Ergo: Your entire movement is racist. (Guilt By Association. Circumstantial ad hominem. Hasty Generalization. How many logical fallacies can they employ?)

You get people like those at Don't Tea On Me, who point to a single data point, and conclude that the argument is invalid, and thus the only answer for why you're critical of their side is that you're a racist.

The anonymous author of the story seems to interpret that graph differently than I do.

From what I can see, it shows that spending goes up during war. Even that's lamentable. Reagan ended the Cold War by outspending the communist bloc. Bush I spent in Iraq, Bush II spent in Afghanistan and Iraq. While I think that both Bushes overspent, I can't help but notice that the graph goes up at its steepest rate during the present President's administration.

That increase was predicted by the critics that heard the amazing array of government spending projects that were promised during the last presidential campaign. Give our President that: he's a man of his word, who spent and spent with his cohorts in Congress.

Again, though: it's offensive to be called a racist, simply for being the loyal opposition. I have NEVER thought of the President's race as a liability. Nor have any of my friends who are critics of him.

The truth is, the biggest wedge between the current President's administration and its critics are the knee-jerk supporters, who mindlessly attack the critical pundits with name-calling.