Law and Order?

...and the gaffes are over Governor Perry?

In a bid to rebuild confidence in a possible campaign for President, Rick Perry has once again stepped in it.  This time his campaign tweeted out a photo of his nemesis Rosemary Lehmberg as being the most drunk Democrat in Texas.

While his campaign has since deleted the tweet my question is has the staffer in question been fired?  If the tweet was as offensive and unauthorized as you claim Governor, why not fire the staff member for the total lack of judgement?  You are Mr. Law and Order, right?

Perry who is in legal trouble - not because of Democrat Lehmberg - but because of a Republican appointed special prosecutor should understand that this is the type of thing that is umimpressive to the voters that will win or lose an election for you.

While his current situation supposedly surrounds the question of whether or not Lehmberg should have resigned after his suggestion and whether she could run her office and the Public Integrity Unit after her own arrest for DWI, I do not remember Perry calling for the resignation of Kaufman County District Attorney Rick Harrison or Swisher County District Attorney Terry McEachern.

Harrison was arrested in Seagoville after driving the wrong way down a street and hitting another car. That was his second conviction for DUI.

In November 2002, Swisher County District Attorney Terry McEachern was arrested in New Mexico after failing a field sobriety test and refusing a breath test. He was found guilty of aggravated DWI in June the next year.


The problem in both of those cases was they were Republican office holders.  So much for law and order.

Stories

Let me tell you about the time I went fishing recently.  The fish I caught was so big...

Okay, so in water cooler talk about Ned's latest fishing trip we expect exaggeration.  Without a Facebook picture or other documentation we expect a story that probably over-hypes reality.  It is what it is.  However, when we watch our news networks though, we expect them to still perform at least a minimal level of journalistic activity and verify stories.  Right?  Two examples this week demonstrate that the expectation of journalists doing there job is probably giving them more credit than they deserve.

First, CNN airs what is reported to be audio of the Ferguson, Missouri shooting.

As CNN notes it did not independently verify the recording...it just ran with it.  Again.  I say again because I assume you remember when CNN "broke" the story that the Affordable Care Act had been struck down by the Supreme Court.  CNN now is trying to walk back their exclusive coverage worried their audio may be a hoax.  Woops.

At the same time news reports tell us the University of Southern California Cornerback Josh Shaw admits to lying about saving his drowning nephew from a pool in his apartment complex.  It was only a few days ago they were informing of us that his dual injured ankles was the result of jumping from his second floor flat to help his nephew.

While USC and local authorities continue to investigate, my question is what is it you were trying to do, i.e. how did you really injure your ankles?  Was this some sort of crime or pseudo crime?  Was this just teenage foolishness?  What?  Now we all want to know and since we know your first story is BS I hope the next one is better.

There seems to be a mantra in network news these days that first is better than being accurate and while I do get the idea of breaking news, shouldn't it be close to accurate and/or news worthy?  Any more you get stories coming out: BREAKING NEWS...the former Governor of Virginia may enter a plea.  This isn't news, it's speculation.  BREAKING NEWS...the White House may allow more immigrants to stay in the country.  Here too I get that some of the information we get is via intentional leaks to trial balloon ideas before the public before an actual decision can be made.  You have to check with the oracle known as polling before you can play leader.  (And I blame both Democrats and Republicans and corporate America for this.)  However, there is zero requirement to actually go along with this by journalists.

When did the media give up on their fourth estate rights?  When did they decide they were just going to give everyone a pass?   These are the things that drive me nuts when it comes to network news, but it does allow for some decent parody. 

For those of you who wonder what I might mean, here is Katie Nolan of Fox's No Filter whose weekend story is at least interesting.  (As a disclaimer I will note that Fox too missed the SCOTUS opinion on the Affordable Care Act.)  Maybe the guy in Ferguson and Josh Shaw could take come and get lessons because she is at least interesting.

Enjoy your Thursday and be careful what news you consume.  Let's just say some news is undercooked and may be hazardous to your health.

Hot Situations

...as Ferguson, Missouri boiled over last week a common theme was the over reach by local police for their response after the shooting with military grade weapons and actions that violate civil rights.  Tampa, Florida seems to have the other problem though.

According to at least two media reports (local and Washington Post) a Tampa area mother watched as her child got "redder and redder" as he was locked in a vehicle that Tampa dispatchers would not respond to when she called 9-1-1.  It took an off duty police officer to come to her aid by calling a second dispatcher and sending resources her way.

Given the number of heat related deaths per year in the United States I am amazed by the callousness of the initial call taker who said that responders would likely just smash her windows.  That is true...they may.  We knuckle dragging fire types though may also find another way in, but either way, that is a decision for responders who should be on the road immediately rather than waiting for a AAA locksmith to show up.

For me, this ranks up there with the DC Fire EMS scandals of non-response except it may be worse in this regard.  All the call taker likely had to do was press a button and/or speak a few words.  How lazy can you get?  You aren't even doing the real work.

You just need to send people willing to handle the situation and perhaps try to help the mother find ways into the car in the meantime.  I know a number of dispatchers who like to wear their career on their sleeve and talk about "I tell YOU where to go."  Maybe so, but if you act like this call taker did, you deserve to go find a new career.

This is one public safety story that has me hot.

Focus

Again I must beg your forgiveness.  For some reason I thought we had the freedom to speak our minds in this country - even when it is offensive to someone else.

Apparently the right to speak only extends to certain people who are allowed to say what they like and that right also seems to extend to those who don't wish to speak - but only certain folks.

The Department of Justice has recently send out a team to investigate a Nebraska parade float.  They meanwhile do not apparently have enough agents to deal with an IRS crisis that demonstrates that employees used the IRS for political purposes.

Again and again, the warning signs are apparent as the US government is using the NSA to spy on ordinary Americans, the DOJ attacks reporters who question their motives, and will use the full force of the federal government against a man with a beat down blue pick up who poked fun at the President, yet they do not police themselves when it comes to the political use of government agencies against its citizens.

This President seems to believe his own press.  I know it sounds crazy President Obama, but you are not God.  You may wish to think you are and send out your jackals to stifle dissent, but while you enjoy a vacation in Martha's Vineyard - children are washing up on to the shore of the Rio Grande.  You worry about people criticizing you, but not the criticism.  You are a poor excise for a leader and you needn't worry about the criticism of today because it is the history books that will bring you the most shame.  A President who could not focus on anything, but the mirror.

Waco 2.0

When I look at the situation in Nevada with Clive Bundy and the Bureau of Land Management, it appears to me that I am watching Waco 2.0 all over again.  While Waco involved David Koresh and the Branch Davidians and the possible sexual assault of teenagers and girls as young as nine and ten, it is not clear to me why the federal government feels the need to show up at someone’s property with armed agents and snipers over what is essentially an unpaid parking ticket.

I have no idea the actual penalties faced by Mr. Bundy in terms of grazing fees etc., but what I do know is it appears that we are asking young men and women to go to another American’s house at point of bayonet.  That we threaten violence over these bills in an era where Americans feel more polarized than ever is embarrassing and potentially dangerous.

Our country already feels like they are on the precipice and this can not help the situation any having armed agents threatening an individual like this, much less the ensuing reaction force that are showing up on the fence line as well.  When I look at current media accounts there appears to be almost a demilitarized zone at this gentleman’s ranch and that is not the America any of us should want to live in.

Government Behaving Badly

Welcome to the new world where up is down and back is front and left is right.  What in the world is going on?  Today’s news features two stories which are appalling on their face as the government does its best impressions of incompetence. 

First, our venerable Customs and Border Protection who has multiple sites across Arizona, California, and New Mexico to detain Americans traveling wholly and entirely within the United States and ask them questions about their national heritage has recently confiscated and then destroyed thirteen wooden flutes of Boujemaa Razgui, a classical flutist, who has performed with these same instruments at the Lincoln Center and with both Shakira and Beyonce. 

Being the all powerful government they are, they refuse to apologize for destroying these rare instruments, just as they seem comfortable not apologizing for performing their primary mission of stopping foreign nationals from invading the country illegally.  Should I mention Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev? 

Why is it again and again, when our government makes a mistake they refuse to try to fix it?  We get it that the US Government is not perfect.  It’s okay that you hit the baseball into the living room window, but now you have messed something up and you need to go mow lawns until you can pay to replace the glass. 

That being the case, how many of you who voted for President Obama are loving that decision now that they have forced through the Affordable Care Act and you get to not only pay higher premiums, get dropped from the insurance you did like, but now can’t get verified to receive treatment?  Let me get this right, I can’t keep my doc, have to pay more, and still can’t get service.  Thank you President Obama for creating a whole new black market called medicine.  You say you want more people insured and covered, well you have just done the opposite. 

Any apologies from 44?  How about Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid?  Of course not.  You will remember, they are all exempt from the provisions of the ACA which they all loved so much they could not wait to force it on you and I. 

The ACA is now causing people with chest pain to leave hospitals without being seen because their brand new, shiny Obamacare insurance can not be verified. Woops. 

I am tempted to give these lawmakers the benefit of the doubt on these issues that this is not what they intended, but they realized there were problems and refused to delay the entire process, instead carving out for themselves exemptions that the ordinary American can not have for themselves. 

I realize that these issues would seem not to relate, but in both cases, you have bureaucrats acting in their own manner.  They are acting arbitrarily and capriciously without thinking through the consequences of their own actions and considering the effect on the populace.

While many Americans think about George Orwell and the spying in 1984, I am much more concerned about Animal Farm and the statement “all animals are equal, some are just more equal than others.”  Somewhere along the line President Obama became too comfortable with this idea to the chagrin of the rest of us.