After following the latest, and hopefully last, installment of the Ferguson Follies I have only a few musings to share with you.

1. There is nothing in any police officer’s job description that says being a punching bag for certain members of the public is part of the job. Unfortunately many prosecutors take the attitude of “It’s part of your job, man” when discussing this with POs, and more or less ignore these events; others will throw in a “resisting arrest” charge which is usually discarded during the perp’s plea-bargain process.

   Every time they’re published, the FBI LEOKA (Law Enforcement Officers Killed or Assaulted) stats have a heading disclosing how many officers were killed with their own weapon after they were relieved of it during a scuffle or other encounter. Every one of those deaths began with someone resisting arrest. This offense should be regarded with more seriousness than it now is.

2. Certain enlightened individuals in Ferguson or nationally want police departments to follow guidelines regarding PD hiring and duty assignment that, if taken to their logical conclusion, would result in segregated police departments, only a certain element of which would be allowed to patrol designated parts of a town since only they would be deemed uniquely qualified to enforce the law in that social environment. PDs would be racially split right down the middle as some of them actually were in years gone by.
3. Those same enlightened individuals at the same time began pressing for the deployment and use of police officer “body cams” nationwide to document supposed instances of police brutality and overreaction to certain events.

Rather than protest this development, I believe PDs should accept this new technology with open arms. As anyone with any LE experience who reads this blog knows, incident reports can never fully convey the realities of the situation a police officer confronts every day on the street. PD body cam footage would depict better than words ever could what really occurs on the street and would show the world, or at least the jury, what a complete jackass our poor, oppressed, underprivileged defendant was when confronted by LE during the commission of his/her offense. They may also show the condition of the victim of the crime the perp is accused of. The singular, priceless advantage of these cameras, however, is that they will put a significant dent in the earnings of criminal defense attorneys in that they will remove any doubt or ambiguity for a jury about the attitude and actions of their client when first confronted by LE at the crime scene or when apprehended. There will be very little “wiggle room” left in litigation for defense attorneys and the footage obtained will almost certainly redound to the detriment of the accused. I therefore predict if these cameras are adopted by police departments across this country, the ABA will immediately press for their exclusion. They won’t last long.

ID

Just a short note to let you know that opening weekend of deer season in Alabama went wonderfully well. Of the three of us (me, and Senior Minions 1 & 2) we each harvested one fat doe apiece, and had a ball. I was extremely gratified to note that the Senior Minions did not have any trouble field-dressing their kills, and other than their complete inability to sharpen a knife (a flaw that I fear may be genetic, since The Grandmother is likewise incapable) they completed the task in yeomanlike fashion.

This is the second year of hunting (actually hunting, as opposed to sitting in the stand while Grandpa hunts) for Senior Minion 1, but the first year for Senior Minion 2. They have, however put the smack down on a number of feral hogs, which has given them the confidence to tackle deer at extended ranges. (One morning, Senior Minion 2 whacked a hog, that dropped without even twitching. When asked where she’d hit it, she replied “Right where I aimed.” “And where was that?” I asked. “About one inch below his ear” she replied. I reminded her of what I’d said about head shots, and she replied, with some asperity, “Papa, I could hit a dime at this range!”

My goal with these girls has been to make sure that, by the time they are 18, they are prepared to deal with anything that happens; fire, flood, or zombie apocalyse.

I think I’m getting there. Love these kids!

If I was any more pleased, I could bottle it and sell it!

Best wishes,

Retired Spook

This miserable and lowly minion begs to approach you and speak about the forthcoming Congress which for the first time in many years will be under majority control of a single party – this time, the GOP. Yes, the Republicans are often called “The Stupid Party” and for good reason. But there have been hints that the GOP may finally be recognizing the need for fiscal sanity and may have found a method – an old method – to impose it on the federal government.

One of those hints regards the current – and highly inefficient – use of a “continuing resolution” to fund the entire government in one whack. This isn’t the way things used to be done. Once upon a time, each department was funded separately with its own funding authorization. These smaller bills contained fine-grained budgetary numbers and allowed Congress to have much closer control on how those departments operated (which programs were funded, which were not, and to what level).

The idea of returning to department-level funding authorizations and to stop using the continuing resolution stopgap measure to fund government has been floated by some members of the GOP, and is receiving tepid although growing support.

Interestingly enough, it is the child-king Obama who has inspired the return to department-level funding sanity. He has done this by threatening to veto any continuing resolution that does not contain support for his personal agenda, such as DHS funding that “legalizes” illegal aliens. Thus, he holds the entire government hostage to his personal ideology – but only if the government continues to be funded via the continuing resolution mechanism.

Returning to the use of department-level budgetary authorizations is the easiest and best way to force the child-king Obama’s hand. For instance, funding the Department of the Interior in one bill and the Department of the Treasury in another would allow Congress to “tweak” the budgets and cut excessive funding for those departments individually. This would force Obama to address any “missing” programs and budgetary cuts individually and on a department-by-department level, if he wished to veto those authorizations.

Eventually, the Department of Homeland Security budget would hit the child-king Obama’s desk with the elimination of funding for the “conversion” of illegal aliens to legal status (DHS is the aegis under which this program is funded). The child-king Obama would then have to defend his illegal alien funding or not approve the DHS budget – and **ONLY** the DHS budget. Which means that he, the child-king Obama – not the GOP – would be responsible for shutting down the FBI and other ‘homeland” security organs while seniors would still be getting their Social Security checks paid out of HHS (that department’s budget was already approved under separate signature).

In this manner, government would continue operating and the GOP could not be accused of “shutting down the (entire) government”. It could also be the start of an actual shrinking of the size and cost of government, and a reduction in government control over The People.

Your Majesty, that’s the idea that’s being quietly floated around: funding government “the old fashioned way”: department by department. The child-king Obama would hate it because it reduces his power. The MSM would hate it because they couldn’t blame the GOP for not “funding government”. The Democrats and the RINOs would hate it because they couldn’t use the “I had to approve the c/r even though I disapproved of some of the funding” excuse.

And The People would love it, because it would increase transparency in funding, hold legislators’ and the President’s feet to the fire, and force them to justify ridiculously bloated budgets.

But only if “The Stupid Party” smartens up – and real quick.

Well, I can dream, can’t I?

Operative BJ