tvc184

Anything is more user friendly than PayK12. Just sayin’…….

It’s terrible no matter what happened. I am always concerned with the news media and social media outright lies or incorrect information that is put out, maybe in a rush to be first. Watching the video, it is easy to see that some of the earlier claims are simply nonsense. The officer might be cleared or he might face trial but we should be disgusted with the misinformation. Having been on scene or shortly after an officer involved shooting three times, I can say that some information that comes out is a complete fabrication. This is a horrible situation no matter who was at fault. I wish that the nonsensical false information would stop. That won’t happen…..

Trump walks to the beat of a different drummer so he could very likely pick a person that is on no one’s radar. Going by typical political logic, assuming that a VP pick might bring 0.5%-1% votes, who should it be? A half to one percent is not much but in a potentially razor thin election, a couple of thousand votes in a state could decide the presidency. Biden won AZ by just over 10,000 votes. The most recent Beaumont mayoral election, where almost no one votes, had over 15,000 votes cast. In GA it was 12,000 votes and Biden did not even get 50%. In WI it was 20,000 and again Biden didn’t get to 50%. There are other states in that area of percent point difference. How important? If any two AZ, GA and WI flip, Trump would have won. So while the VP probably never matters…. can it this time? I think that it could. What then does the VP pick bring to the table? FL and SC were both won by Trump in 2020 so a favored son vote for Rubio or Scott won’t help Trump. Both are in a fairly comfortable position within the conservative community so they will neither hurt nor help with strong conservative voters. What about the few fence riders that could and likely will determine the election by either sticking with Biden or switching from the last election? What about the people who did not vote in the last election, but may come out to vote in this one just to support the VP candidate? Could Scott sway a percentage point or two from Black support? Could Rubio help draw a percentage point or two of Hispanic support? Possibly on both counts. Like I already mentioned, they won’t help in their own states because Trump already won those in 2020. I personally think that either would actually do a good job as president (although VP picks are about the politics of being elected and not the “best” possible president) and might be the difference in a few votes but a few votes more is all that is needed. Or…. My outlier, Tulsi Gabbard. She had some decent support when are ran for the presidency in the Democrat primary. Could some people follow her because they support her and not necessarily the party? I’m sure that’s true for all candidates. Could she bring female support? As a strong mentally and physically person and a member of the military who was deployed into a combat zone into Iraq. Then she went to OCS and became an officer, then deployed to Kuwait. Can that military history, including deployment into a war swing some votes? As of late, she has been on a one person tirade against Biden and the Democrats. Let’s remember that Ronald Reagan was a Democrat and so was Texas governor John Connally. Connally was not only a Democrat governor in Texas but also Secretary of the Navy under JFK. Both ended up switching to the Republican Party so there is a fairly strong history of former Democrats switching parties and being successful, all the way up to the presidency. Gabbard is a pretty fiery campaigner and doesn’t mince her words. She would really be a thorn in the Democrats’ hopes and has the inside knowledge of the party. Could she potentially swing more votes than Scott or Rubio? I think so. But…. I don’t think that Trump would pick her and I’m not sure that she would accept if offered. Her odds of being Trump's pick are at about 1%. Scott or Rubio at about 10%. Trump being Trump, will choose someone who no one has ever heard of.

🤣🤣🤣 Right on schedule!!

You’re quibbling over the word “most”. I agree that the UK is our most important military ally but we have overwhelming other support from Europe through NATO. What other support do we have in the Middle East? What are the “most” important issues? Military strength or intelligence that might head off the need for military action? It’s certainly debatable. I honestly wouldn’t argue with any points on which if the most critical to our interests. I am sure that people can make valid arguments from different points of view. Military? The UK. Middle East intelligence? Israel. As far as Israel, SmashMouth said that they “may very well be” the most important. ”May be” is not an adamant statement but a suggestion. They might be… depending on what the discussion is about. Worrying about the word “most” (especially “may be”) seems to be the definition of trivial.

I am surprised that this is not been covered yet. A deputy received a call of a disturbance in the apartment. He knocked on the door and announced that he was with the sheriff department twice. The man opened the door with a pistol in hand. Of course the news articles give a different take on the incident. Once such comment in the news article below was from the family attorney who said the deputy busted into the apartment. Then the police released the video and showed that the deputy did not open the door, the resident/Airman did. I guess to inflame the public or create click bait, false or uncorroborated information is immediately released. I have read or viewed accusations that the deputy never announced that he was outside, that he forced his way in, he covered up the eyepiece on the door so that the man couldn’t look out, etc. Much of that has already been squashed by releasing the video. [Hidden Content]

They need to delay it until Wednesday. Since I can’t be there tomorrow…. 🤔

The “Boy Scouts” ended 5 years ago and realistically about 4 decades ago. Yes, they allowed girls in the Explorer Scouts probably 40 years ago and in other groups later. If you don’t think that girls should be in scouting, I won’t argue the opinion. In this case they only changed the name. If you remove Boys from Boy Scouts of America, it is Scouts of America. So now it is Scouting America instead of Scouts of America.

Because…..

Wolf in sheep’s clothing….

There are always exceptions but I have worked with/mentored children and young adults (still) from 15-19. I would be shocked if they knew anything prior to maybe 2010. History? Current news? Not unless it’s on TikTok….

That makes for no repeat offenders.

The name Boy Scouts as part of Boy Scouts of America ended five years ago. They went to Scouting BSA. They quit using the term Boy Scouts a few years ago. Some people are a little late to the protest. The Boy Scouts have been co-ed for about 50 years in some programs and all of them years ago. They quit completely being completely “boy” scouts like back in the 70’s with Explorers. So they went to Scouting America. Horrible!! They are currently about 1.2 million scouts of which almost 200,000 are girls. This isn’t new. They simply changed the name to Scouting America as the parent organization. Again, the name Boy Scouts ended a while back. They didn’t change their logo to a transgender person, didn’t change the qualifications, they didn’t take “America” out of the name, etc. Sometimes I wonder how far people will go to be offended…..

Port Arthur has been taxing GSU/Entergy for decades through in lieu of tax agreements. Bridge City was making some noise about trying to undo Port Arthur’s lawful ETJ so Port Arthur simply ended the discussion by annexing what they already had control over. I have responded to calls at Entergy so they are receiving at least police services.

If that is a quick question, I would hate to see a long one. 🤣🤣🤣

After listening to a podcast from the Michael Berry show yesterday, interviewing the lawyer that led the fight to the Louisiana Supreme Court, it changes things a bit. St. George was never part of Baton Rouge proper. According to Louisiana law though, the mayor of Baton Rouge was automatically the president of the parish which I believe is roughly, the equivalent of the county judge in Texas. So the mayor of Baton Rouge had control of the city and the parish simultaneously. As such she had control over Baton Rouge and St. George, but without having to provide city services to St. George. According to the St. George lawyer, Baton Rouge could have annexed the St. George area at any time but apparently chose not to as they had access to that tax base but did not have to provide any city services. So St. George decided to create their own city but not by separating from Baton Rouge who had some control over them even though they were not within the city limits. It kind of harkens back to taxation without representation. We want your money but you don’t have a say so in how we spend it. I guess St. George had their own mini revolution. The Baton Rouge response was something like, “how dare you use state law to create your own city and take your money away from us!?”

We all know that each state has its own laws which can be very different, especially in endeavors like annexation or incorporation, so there is no telling what Louisiana law says. I don’t know but I doubt that there is a point of appeal for Baton Rouge to force St. George to be absorbed back into Baton Rouge by now giving them what they asked for years ago. “Oh, we lost? Well let’s just undo incorporation, ruled as legal by the Supreme Court (of LA) by going back and giving them what they asked for”. There has to be a law allowing such an appeal. I think what I read about the lower court decisions which actually backed up Baton Rouge, they did not all rule that incorporation was illegal but that they did not think the city could have services up and running soon enough. So you have a court saying that sure you can split but only if we agree that you can provide services get enough. In Louisiana, who knows? I doubt that Texas has such a mechanism to allow a city to split, for example, could the west end of Beaumont say that they wish to make their own city against Beaumont’s objection? I doubt it. Certainly Beaumont could allow a city to be created as Port Arthur did with Bridge City and Taylor’s Landing. There is a huge difference in allowing and forcing which is what happened in Baton Rouge. Similar to the sometime discussed topic of Texas splitting off from the United States because they don’t like the way things are going, think if citizens in any city in the United States were allowed to create their own city, which could not be stopped by the parent city. That could get interesting!! Don't like what is happening in the south side of Chicago? Just de-annex and create your own city!! Anyway, I thought that it is an interesting story when the capital city splits in half.

It seems from what I have read, that Baton Rouge, LA has been split almost in half, with a new city called St. George being incorporated. I think that St. George is an area of the city much like South Park is in Beaumont or Port Acres in Port Arthur. Apparently people living in the St. George area of the city wanted a new school district because of how bad the Baton Rouge school district was. When denied, they organized and voted to form their own city. After the vote passed to incorporate, Baton Rouge fought it in the courts which ended last week with the Louisiana Supreme Court ruling in favor of St. George. At least the way I read it, Baton Rouge just lost about 85,000 people (almost half) and about $50 million from their tax base. Baton Rouge probably should have let them start their own school district…. [Hidden Content]

After all my years of responding to calls, how many times did horrific injuries occur by a dog…. that was friendly and has never done anything like this!! It makes you sick yet terribly angry. It’s horrifying. Some dogs need to go, period. But that isn’t politics…..

No argument in your rationale however politics isn’t rational. Said people vote. Those votes don’t have to be approved by a jury deciding if a voter has a valid reason for his beliefs. There are things that I firmly believe but I would never say them, even in private (what is private anymore?) if I ever intended to run for office. It doesn’t matter if my private thoughts could be proven 100% as correct, it still might very likely lose voters and an election. Maybe you missed the Trump presidency……

What does my comment to baddog have to do with this post? He said that free speech is only for Americans. It isn’t. Tell me where I am wrong.

Only if you ignore the Constitution. I get the sentiment but I sometimes ponder when others may say, “We always support the Constitution”, “The Constitution has to be followed as the law of the land”, etc. When in reality they mean, “I LOVE THE CONSTITUTION……. except the parts I don’t like”. There are certainly parts of the Constitution that I would change if I had the option.

I think it will be an interesting case and could potentially come up for appeal on a different constitutional point. The Supreme Court has ruled in the past that the government doesn’t have to take possession of property in order to take it under the meaning of the Fifth Amendment. If they take away the enjoyment or use of the property, it is no different than physically seizing it to build a highway for example. In a lawsuit as opposed to a criminal trial, a person/plaintiff doesn’t have to prove something beyond a reasonable doubt but rather by a preponderance of evidence or “more likely” to have happened. Maybe it could be described as more likely yes than no or 51%-49%. ”IF” it can be shown at a trial by a preponderance of evidence that Texas more likely yes than no caused the flooding with its engineering of the project, the people suing might have a case. But…. Does that alone win the case under the Fifth Amendment taking clause? I am not so sure. In US v Causby the Supreme Court ruled that the US government took a man’s property by flying airplanes over it. It was a public airport lawfully leased by the US in WWII and used to fly heavy bombers from it. Causby had an egg farm and the extremely loud noise of some airplanes under full power and sometimes at night with a landing lights being so close, it bothered and scared the family and damaged his egg farm production. Some chickens died and some quit laying eggs due to the extreme disturbances and lights at night. The Supreme Court ruled in Causby’s favor saying that the US had taken away the enjoyment and use of his land even though they didn’t physically seize it. The use of the land was hampered and that was enough for the taking clause under the Fifth Amendment. So in the IH-10 case, did Texas take away the use or enjoyment of the property? A point of Causby was that the military bombers at a public airport was certainly for “public use”. The planes were public/taxpayers’ and the airport and lease were taxpayers’ property so the “public” definitely used it My question in this lawsuit against Texas, even in they can prove the damage, was the damage (like in Causby) for “public use”? If not would it then not be a Fifth Amendment case but rather a state law case? If Texas law denies such a lawsuit under state sovereignty and the families can’t prove a Fifth Amendment case of “public use”, could they prove the damages but still lose the case under state law? I haven’t read that anywhere and just thinking out loud. I could be way off base. But I think it could be interesting…..

If the state can show that, they will probably win. As far as the other people, they might have a case also. The Supreme Court doesn’t know any of the facts other than the State of Texas says that he doesn’t get his day in court. Their unanimous opinion was, yes the Constitution says that he gets his day in court. I have no opinion one way or the other except on the Fifth Amendment and precedent. Within the last few days they ruled the same thing on a California city where the local government said that the Constitution basically doesn’t apply to them. Again a unanimous Supreme Court said, oh yes it does.

But we aren’t discussing criminal charges which have nothing to do with a constitutional right. The government doesn’t have to receive something in order to take it under the Fifth Amendment. I have already said that the burden is on the land owner to prove that the highway caused the damage. If he can do so however, he will probably have a good case under the Constitution.