tvc184

Didn’t the Supreme Court decide this already about another Colorado cake baker and just today siding with the Catholic Church unanimously over the city of Philadelphia and the Catholic Church refusal to put foster children with same-sex couples?

Yes it seems tragic but he is by far and away the highest solved crime. That is as it should be with like home burglaries, I think the national saving rate is about 10%. So you figure if someone breaks into your home and there is about a 90% chance depression will never be caught. what catches criminals is if they are criminals. People don’t commit one crime and then give it up. A person will break into 10 homes and get away with it with then he will eventually be caught. There are very few serious criminals that commit crime for a long time and don’t get caught. In fact when you see criminals convicted locally, the news will almost always report at this is that person second or third or fourth felony. The fact is if the police catch people but the overcrowded system simply lets them go.

That is not possible because there are too many laws that simply depend on marriage. You might call it a civil union, you might think it’s OK same sex or whatever. It is impossible in the law to escape unions.

It seems like the biggest push for separation of church and state is the left. Now a unanimous Supreme Court appears to have ruled that the government cannot tell the church what to do. Now those same leftists are angry that the Supreme Court sided with separation of church and state. I read the decision from the Supreme Court and it comes down to saying that the city cannot tell the church how it must believe. The Catholic Church had denied services to other religions such as Jewish and Muslim and in the case of foster children, denied same-sex couples because it was against our religion. Since I read and teach supreme court decisions, I found something about this case that is repeated sometimes over and over again. This case went to appeal in front of the federal circuit court and a unanimous circuit court sided with Philadelphia over the Catholic Church. Then the Supreme Court heard the case and it was unanimous in the other direction. I have read so many cases that were unanimous in the lower court and were overturned by a unanimous Supreme Court. It is almost like many of the lower court decisions do not read the prior supreme court decisions on the same topic. There is a legal concept called stare decisis. In that concept, appeals court decisions should be based on precedents set in prior decisions. Some people do not believe in stare decisis and believe that each case should stand on its own matter what the prior caselaw. I sometimes feel like the lower courts do not look at the supreme court decisions wish they should. There are simply a lot of cases where the lower court will rule one way and the Supreme Court, not in a split decision which might be understandable, but in an overwhelming unanimous decision will slap the lower court and basically say, what in the heck were you thinking?

I am OK with it. I understand the concern but I think it is much ado about nothing. If you go back to when the CHL passed 26 years ago, it was the claimed that now the gun fights would start. I did not think that was true but I thought there would be some Incidents. I saw no evidence of any people legally carrying, going out and committing crimes. I was a police officer for the last 26 years under that law and can think of maybe one incident where we arrested a CHL holder for committing a crime. Compared to the general population, I think that is a pretty good results for a CHL holder not being a criminal. They changed the law to more or less define traveling as merely being in your car. So for the last 12 to 14 years or so, anyone could carry a handgun in their car anytime they wanted as long as it was concealed. Under your seat, in the glove box, in the consul or even on your seat under a towel, it was legal. Has the homicide rate going up in that timeframe because of this? I don’t think so. There is always the potential that a road rage incident happened because the person had a lawful handgun on him however a person who is willing to shoot you because you did not put on your blinker, would not care about the laws on handguns anyway. That is a part of the argument I never understand is it people seem to think that before the CHL came out, there were no shooting crimes. If fact violent crime has been down somewhat in the last few years but I think it runs in cycles. Since Covid came out about a year and a half ago there seems to be an uptick in violence and also protest like the George Floyd riots. Even though violence has increased somewhat in that timeframe, I don’t think it’s because of carry laws. A person willing to go out and commit a murder on the street is not going to care about a misdemeanor handgun law. We have always been able to carry rifles and shotguns openly in Texas. When the LTC law came out and a few people really got crazy on some Internet forums saying that this was a game changer and so on. Yet again, I have seen nothing to indicate it is a change in the crime level because people could now carry a handgun openly. It is just a personal belief but I think this law will change absolutely nothing. Only thing it will change is a price as you won’t have to pay the $8 a year tax for the LTC.

It could always be open carried under the LTC as long it was on you in a holster. What has almost go unnoticed, they also passed a law in this legislative session that if it is open carried in a car (regardless of constitutional carry or LTC), as long as it is in a holster it does not have to be on your person. As an example you could have a paddle holster or concealed carry holster and not actually have to wear it in the car. You could leave it in the holster on the seat because for some people it is uncomfortable to wear it while in the car. With this new clarification you can leave it in the holster on the seat so you could easily put it on as you are getting out to go shopping, etc.

Nationally I believe the homicide clearance rate in between 60 - 70%. In the southeast Texas area I think it is a little higher like maybe 85% but I can’t find that anywhere. I think 70% would be a good number to go by so if Beaumont has 15 homicides this year, it is likely that about four will go unsolved. That comes out to around 40 per decade and you can go back as far as you want.

This afternoon Governor Abbott signed into law that on September 1 this year, people in Texas can openly or concealed carry a handgun without any license. Let the shootouts begin on that day...... as so many of the comments I have seen. Of course they said the same thing in 1995 when the CHL law was passed, about 12 years ago when you could be in carry a handgun in a vehicle without a license and four years ago when open carry was allowed with an LTC.

In the last four years or so, my Police Department had two cold cases solved by DNA. For some reason those cases don’t always make big local news. I think it is not the fact that it is a DNA case as much as people tend to remember certain homicides that were more big news at the time.

Because there is always the belief, yeah all those other socialist programs failed but ours will succeed. We will do it differently. Socialism is driven by idealism. We will all have a group hug, we will all pitch in our fair share, we will all do the same thing and everything will work out great. It is the panacea to all human problems, we will just all work together. But all these idealists forget one thing. That thing is a human factor. We are all motivated but we are each individually motivated by our personal desires. No one is going to get up and work for his fellow man. We work for ourselves. That doesn’t mean we don’t help our fellow man. I would say that the capitalist American system probably donates more than the rest of the world combined and I’m talking even at the local level. Yes I know that there are doctors they volunteer their services around the world and there are missionaries who take no money and travel to poor countries to help but about 99.99% of the people work or do whatever they do to satisfy themselves. Socialism or equality depends everyone doing what today is being done by the 0.01%. That is the person that will get up and donate his time and effort for the collective. That is the basis of socialism. That is because of human nature however there are even people reading this forum who will think, yeah but that is not our version. Yes, it is your version. The people at the top will live like kings and the 99.5% of the people at the bottom will live like the people in Cuba, NK, etc., however they have convinced themselves otherwise. Under a free enterprise capitalist system there will still be those people at the top but the people in the middle and some of the people near the bottom still live comfortable lives. Many get to do vacations, family gatherings, have decent homes, decent vehicles and I’m talking even in the lower economic circles. Most of the ones in the lower economic sections can still get out if they wish. But again, there will be people reading this comment that will say either to themselves or in this form, all of that may be true but ours will be different. Again, no it won’t. It comes down to one word, freedom. The leftist who are pushing socialism do not believe that.

In truth you could probably interview most people that are from socialist, communist and dictatorship countries and you would get about the same results.

Yep. For all we know they had both planned on robbing each other. I’m sure that has happened. What should happen and I don’t think it always does, you need to go where the evidence leads. You don’t decide what the end is and then go try to find the evidence to prove it.

Assuming that it was that the three in the car from mid county that were going to do the robbery and not the other way around, yes they would need to bring the marijuana. You have to put the carrot in front of the horse to make him run. When they pull up to pick up the black kid, yeah there better be something inside that car that looks like marijuana and darn sure smells like marijuana before he is getting you to go to another location or just sit in a parking lot to make a deal. They are all suspicious of each other and on edge. If you were going to lure someone into a trap, you had better bait. I don’t think that is probably what happened however you cannot negate that possibility. Heck, the three could’ve had the idea to make a drug deal and then halfway there changed their mind and hatched a plan to instead of selling drugs, to go ahead and just do a robbery and be done with it. One of the things I learned in almost 4 decades of law-enforcement, if you think you know what happened before you start the investigation, you’re probably going to screw it up and miss evidence one way or the other.

I am surprised that the article did not bring up what has become a mantra of the media lately, Texas passes law to allow carry of handguns without a license. The law hasn’t gone into affect yet and in fact has not even been signed but the articles continue to say blah blah blah......

Yeah, we rolled up with the bodies still on the beach. I had forgot about that. It was a terrible situation. Those calls make me the feel the sickest. One person has decided that if he/she (usually he but not always) can’t live with someone/get visitation rights /whatever or is breaking up with someone, no one will live sometimes including the significant other, children, other family or friends. I don’t know if there is such a thing as one more terrible than another but one type is where a guy will not kill the wife but will kill their children and then himself to make the woman suffer the loss the rest of her life. One such case, not local, made case law all the way to the US Supreme Court. In Caste Rock v. Gonzales case, a man had visitation rights with his children in a separation but only with pre-arranged visits. He abducted his 3 children and his wife called the police. She urged them to look for the children but they said the father might return them later so she should just wait. The man murdered all 3 children and then drove to the police station with their bodies in the car. He got in a shoot out with the police. They shot and killed him and then found the 3 dead small children. The woman sued out of the 14th amendment saying that she was not given due process. The trial judge threw out the lawsuit and said there is no constitutional right to police protection. The federal 10th Circuit Court reinstated the lawsuit saying that the police violated her rights by not providing protection (that would sure open an expensive can of worms. Every person that was a victim of any kind of crime whatsoever, could sue the police and claim that their rights were were violated). It went to the US Supreme Court were they ruled 7-2 that in order to deny you due process, there had to be some kind of process toward you or a state law mandatory benefit from the police. The gist of the ruling that is taught in every Police Academy and many follow up classes, the police do not constitutionally owe you any protection. They brought up in that ruling, if state law specifically gives the police a duty to do something, then you can sue if they fail to do so. That falls on state law or constitution but not the US Constitution. I have seen such lawsuits in Texas. There are very few mandatory actions by the police in Texas however they do exist. One such example is domestic violence, called family violence in Texas. The police have a mandatory duty to make a police report, the duty to give information to the victim such as how to go about getting a protective order or the location of a shelter and if the victim gets a protective order (often called incorrectly a restraining order) and that order is violated in front of the police, it is a mandatory arrest. Another example is entering a runaway child into the national computer immediately or within two hours of a report that the child is missing.

The women got paid more. If there was any disparity in pay, it would be against the men.

That reminds me of another joke... A 60-year-old, 70-year-old and 80-year-old men were sitting around arguing one day on what age was worst to reach when getting old. The 60 year old said, I get up at 6 every morning and go to the bathroom but I stand there for several minutes but and it just trickles and almost nothing comes out. The 70 year old said, that’s nothing. I get up at 7am and have to go poop but I sit there for 20 minutes and nothing happens. The 80-year-old man said, y’all have it easy. To which the 60-year-old said, you can’t go urinate in the morning either? The 80-year-old man said, sure, at 6am it comes like a flood. The 70-year-old then said, oh so you can’t go poop either? The 80-year-old said, sure, at 7am it is like the gates open and you can’t stop it. So the 60 and 70-year-old men asked, then what’s the problem? The 80-year-old man replied, “you don’t wake up until 8”.

A prescription of Tamsulosin might help tremendously.

That reminds me of a joke… A couple in their 70s were watching TV late one night and the old lady told her husband, why don’t you go to the kitchen and get me some ice cream, I want chocolate. The old man got up to go but she said you’d better write it down because you have such a bad memory. He got mad at her and said old woman, you are the one with the bad memory and off he went. About 3 minutes later he yelled back at her from the kitchen, “how did you want those eggs?”. She yelled back, “I told you, over easy!!”.

I understand the issue. Like or dislike the bill, I think the comedy or perhaps disgusting part is so many comments are against the governor like he single-handedly decided who pays what. That would be against the law and in fact it was almost unanimous across-the-board and almost every legislator in the the state thought it was a great idea. Republicans, Democrats, men, women, White/Black/Hispanics, Tea Party conservatives..... almost everybody thought this was the way to go..... but it was Abbott’s fault. 😂

Apparently the governor is about to sign SB 202 which is about the TRS or Teacher Retirement System. KFDM posted a news story that I happen to see on Facebook. It names/interviews a teacher from Southeast Texas who is a retiree but now wants to go back to work. That sounds like a great deal. But he blames the governor from likely keeping him from a job. What is the governor about to do that will keep him from working? He is about to sign that bill (apparently) that says..... (drum roll 🥁) if a retired teacher works for a school district, the school district must pay for his retirement benefits that normally come out of the teacher’s check. That’s right folks, the evil governor appears ready to sign a bill that says if you are retired but return to work, the school district has to pick up the percentage of your salary that normally is paid into the system. That means the teacher gets to keep more of his/her own money. Apparently that is a very bad thing. Facebook page is lit up with calling the governor an idiot, not caring, has no clue and so on. I would think that if the public employer had to pay the employees retirement for him/her it would be a good thing. Apparently not if you are governor Abbott. So like I do with most issues, I looked up the bill. It passed 31-0 in the Senate and 143-4 in the House. So with a vote combined of 174–4, it looked like near unanimous support from the Republicans and the Democrats for one end of the state to the other. In a rare bipartisan move, the legislature said that the retiree need to keep more of his/her own money and for that, the governor is an idiot. Therein lies some of the stupidity of some comments about politics. Without any clue about the bill, what it said or who supported it, political lines are drawn by perceived differences in party, class, race or whatever. Here is the article from KFDM. [Hidden Content]

As long as you don’t stand in them....

I pretty much think the same. I can see where it would be a very fun game to play but not to watch. There are other sports that people who are not into it would consider boring and I get that. I like to play golf and sometimes I like to watch golf, when it’s a big tournament and some of the big-name players on on the leaderboard. The fact that someone who does not like golf would think it’s boring, I completely understand. There is very little action. I cannot stand NASCAR. I think it would be like some people watching golf or me watching soccer. If I had the option of watching an entire NASCAR race or changing a flat on someone’s car, I would choose changing the flat. Watching the cars go around the same cycle for an hour is not appealing. An apparently very popular sport with some people loving it. I’m glad that it exist and so many people pleasure from watching. I just think it’s boring. And likewise, I think soccer is boring.

They refused to accept the same offer the men got. They ended up signing a contract which was more than the men got. After refusing the same deal and holding out for a better deal, they ended up making more money than the men and now they claim discrimination. Now the national Democrats are holding up the women’s soccer team as an example of discrimination and unequal pay. Go figure. I think it goes back to the Democratic playbook that no matter what the argument is or what the facts are, you simply claim discrimination. If you oppose their claim, you’re a racist, sexist, homophobe.....

it probably should be June 13, not the 15th. That’s when the actual battle started with the shelling. Just as important is debatable as it was a continued steppingstone. This was unlike the invasion of Normandy where it was the beginning but certainly it was very important. I think the biggest by far accomplishment of the turkey shoot was the forward air bases and allowing to B29’s to basically level Japan. I read a book many years ago (before the Internet) I believe called, A Torch To The Enemy by Martin Caidin. It was about the B 29 bombing campaign over Japan. I cannot remember the exact statistics but basically any city that has at least a 20,000 population in the entire country, was at least 50% destroyed. Many cities were virtually leveled. While people talk about the atomic bomb and destruction, the fire bombing of Tokyo in March 1945 what is the most destructive rate in history. I am going off of memory but I think something like 140,000 people were killed in one night in about 20 square miles of the city was completely destroyed. Well over 1 million people were left homeless. Because the destruction of Japan by air before their surrender was so devastating, the Americans chose a couple of cities to be completely spared. This was for the upcoming atomic bomb raids. They wanted to see the effectiveness of the weapon but could not in most cities because they had already been leveled. That is why Hiroshima and Nagasaki were basically untouched before the atomic bombs. They were preserved as a test case because the rest of my Japan had already been leveled.