Category: Police Powers
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Messaging
There is an ad running at my station, from some major police organization, urging people to not escalate issues with the police during routine contacts. “It’s easier to de-escalate if you don’t escalate” , the add urges.Which is good advice, provided you trust both sides of the episode to be above board and trustworthy. The…
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Fearless Prediction
Minneapolis extremists and the DFL – pardon the redundancy – are going to start portraying themselves as the victims of this past couple of years: Note to Minneapolis progressives: whatever the Minneapolis Police Department’s problems, your “progressive” council members were not the ones being “victimized”.
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Scratch A “Progressive”, Find A Totalitarian
“So, Mitch – why do you say that the democratic party in United States is the party of authoritarianism? “ Because they tell us they are. Strong majority of Democrats approve of Justin Trudeaucescu‘s treatment of civil disobedience:treatment of civil civil disobedience: 35 percent overall approved of Trudeau’s crackdown, while 10 percent said they were…
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Adventures In Variantland
I haven’t written here recently (sorry, Mitch!), mostly because I did a fair amount of traveling in August. I attended my high school reunion in the wilds of Wisconsin, then a week later headed east to a family wedding in the Hocking Hills region of Ohio (highly recommended, by the way). In the course of…
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Never Waste A Crisis
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: Democrats seized on a flu virus to panic the public into accepting restrictions on civil liberties including ‘fortifying’ the election to defeat Bad Orange Man. Now they want storm troopers to go door-to-door, forcing people to take a counter-measure that doesn’t prevent you from catching the virus and won’t…
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Officer Friendly
There’s a video of two Calumet County Wisconsin Sheriff’s deputies hassling a woman because her kids went to the neighbor’s house to play. In response, the Sheriff posted this message: The problem with both the video and the response is the attitude. This is the kind of behavior that gets people upset at law enforcement. …
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Kamala Harris Is Everything That’s Ugly And Stupid About Government
The thing about “progressivism” is that while it flaps its jaws about “helping” the vulnerable, it inevitably ends up harming them. Give them a $15 minimum wage and mandatory sick time? Get them laid off! Attack landlords for the “quality” of housing they provide? Make housing unaffordable! Kamala Harris, in her celebrated (by the media)…
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Miscarriage Of Justice – Part II
Yesterday, I started telling the story of Dr. Massoud Amin – a man who came to the US as a teenager with his parents after the Iranian Revolution, became a citizen, and rose to the highest levels not only of academia, but of national security, as one of the nation’s foremost experts in cybersecurity. And…
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Baited, Switched
A long time ago, in a beautiful but cold place far far away, a communist dictator built a colosseum. Being committed to the populist flim-flam most totalitarians use to get help in seizing power, he named it “The People’s Stadium” – although “the people” only got to use it with the permission of the dictator’s…
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Progress
Utah cop who became internet-famous for dragging a nurse, kicking and screaming, from a hospital after she did precisely the job she was supposed to do, and was told to do by her chain of management, is now an ex-cop: The officer, Detective Jeff Payne, was seen on film dragging a crying nurse out of…
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Have Some More Disease
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: Governor’s law enforcement committee asks the age-old question: Who watches the watchers? The call for a special prosecutor sends up red flags for me. Removing police prosecutions from local control adds a layer of insulation shields the special prosecutor from local oversight. We already have a system of locally…
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“The Government Is Not Coming For Your Guns”
Unless they want to. U.S. Virgin Islands Gov. Kenneth Mapp signed an emergency order allowing the seizure of private guns, ammunition, explosives and property the National Guard may need to respond to Hurricane Irma. Do You Think This Emergency Order Is Unconstitutional? Mapp signed the order Monday in preparation for Hurricane Irma. The order allows…
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Want To Make A Nation Of Fundamentally Law-Abiding, Pro-Police People Trust Cops Less Than Journalists Or Used Car Dealers?
To: Salt Lake City PD From: Mitch Berg, Irascible Peasant Re: Officer Himmler Dear SLCPD, If this piece of walking garbage with a badge…: …is still working for the SLCPD, you are flirting with forfeiting any legitimacy as a “law enforcement” organization. And don’t respond with “do you think you could do his job?” I,…
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Dhim And Dhimmer
SCENE: Mitch BERG is pumping gas at the corner Superamerica when Polly LITTELL – proprietor of the Facebook page “Makeng Minnessota GRAET AGEN” page, pulls up to the next pump. LITTELL: Merg! BERG: Oh, hey, Pollly. (Eyes the meter on the pump, shakes the handle in a futile effort to get it to pump faster).…
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The Sum Of All Fears
“What about our lives? Who protects us from the people who are supposed to protect us?” The question is from Tonya Jameson, a black kid who was held at gunpoint by an off-duty cop when he was changing a license plate on a car that he’d bought from the cop’s mother in law. And he asks…
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The New Brahmins
Democrat congresswoman tells commoner that her First Amendment rights are “Different” than his: A bit of background: when Rep. Demings was a police chief, her gun was stolen from her car; it’s tautological that her gun fell into the hands of a criminal. Demings is, naturally, a gun grabber: So that’s two “rights of the people” where…
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Fair For The Gander
Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama has just been granted authority by the Alabama legislature to form its own police department. The church says it needs its own police officers to keep its school as well as its more than 4,000 person congregation safe. Not sure how this differs from “hiring private security”, which plenty…
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Nullified (Not!)
We don’t know what happened in the jury room in Oregon yesterday – but as we noted last night, a jury acquitted all of Ammon Bundy’s group of all charges. The decision smells like jury nullification – the notion that a jury can invalidate bad law by not finding people guilty of it. Say what…
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A Matter Of Trust
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: This guy was sitting in the car reading a book, Tasered four times, then shot. Or he got out of the car with a gun and threatened the officers. Depends on who you believe. On the one hand, a certain group of people Whose Lives Matter have a history…
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Keystoned
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: Neither the Castile shooting nor the Miami shooting seem like racial incidents. They seem like Keystone Kops incidents: running in circles, nobody in charge, contradictory commands, misinterpreted actions, improper over-reaction. When a mass of cops arrive at the scene, who’s in charge? Who gives the orders? Who decides…
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Impropriety
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: Suppose someone dropped off their real estate documents and I said “I’m very busy right now, I won’t be able to get to them for a couple of weeks. Unless you wanted to paperclip $100 bill to the documents, then I’d be willing to stay late to get them…
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Policies Matter
Not so long ago, a not overly bright person on a community forum called me a “racist” for asking “what does Black Life Matter” actually want?” One might wonder if BLM is “racist” for finally answering my question. Thing is, their ideas aren’t entirely wrong: 1. End “broken windows” policing, which aggressively polices minor crimes…
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Perish The Thought
What – you want to tell me that a public union boss who’s an integral part of the machine in a major city that’s been run into the ground by decades of Democrat rule, doesn’t understand the concept of civil rights or the constitution? The hell you say! I’m just amazed that people thought this was…
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Another Shooting
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails about the story of the day: White cop from St. Anthony department shot Black man at traffic stop on Larpenteur at Fry in Falcon Heights. Passenger took video, protests and vigils occurring. you might want to reiterate your policy of refusing to comment until facts are known to stop…