HERE WE GO AGAIN

HERE WE GO AGAIN

(FRAZER CHRONICLE)

(All the News That Nobody Else Will Print)

Man, they can’t seem to give it up, it’s been more then thirteen years since September 11, 2001, and we’ve been involved with a war that’s been declared on terrorists who reside primarily in the Middle East…..as well as other spots on the globe. Almost without exception, the Bush administration has maintained an almost solid front of denial with regards to any wrongdoing, missteps, or breaking any laws with regards to the invasion of Iraq.

 

The war that was waged with Iraq, the United States and its allies accomplished little except costing the United States taxpayers billions of dollars, and the lives of thousands of soldiers and private contractors. But before we get into the ramifications of what did and didn’t happen in Iraq, I think that we should revisit once more the whys and wherefores of what turned into a Bush administration gaff that for whatever reason those members won’t themselves let go of.

 

The link that was championed by the Bush administration between Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups was a huge shame and the U.S. media gobbled it up like a hungry dog.

 

As recently as December 14, on Meet the Press, former Vice President Dick Cheney said in no uncertain terms that the current government body is castigating the Central Intelligence Agency for “doing what the President Bush ordered, and the Justice Department said was legal.”

 

For Cheney the deaths of 3,000 people on September 11, 2001 at the hands of al-Qaida terrorists justified expanded and enhanced interrogation methods and the subsequent invasion of Iraq…..even after there is loads of evidence that expanded and enhanced interrogation doesn’t work, and that Iraq was not involved with September 11, 2001.

 

THE REASONS FOR WAR

I do hope that you’re ready for a long ride, because there is a litany of reasons cited as to why the United States felt the need to go to war with Iraq. Weapons of Mass Destruction, the oppression of Saddam Hussein’s regime, stability of the Middle East, mushroom clouds over Washington (a dirty bomb attack), allegations that Iraq was cooperating with Bin Laden.

 

Hussein and his thugs, and like minded boosters, were a threat to their neighbors in the area, also to the United States, and the world at large. Hussein was also trampling on peoples human rights, and would not allow UN officials to rummage through the country-side in a search for those every elusive Weapons of Mass Destruction.   

 

However the above reasons weren’t…..of course the only ones, throughout the Bush administration buildup to the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. relied on the authority of UN Security Council Resolutions 678 and 687 which states to use all necessary means to compel Iraq to comply with its international obligations.

 

What actually happened was that the 1991 Gulf war never fully ended because no formal armistice was signed to end hostilities. As a result…..(and this is true) relations between the United States, the United Nations, and Iraq resultantly remained strained, although Hussein issued formal statements renouncing his invasion of Kuwait, and made reparations payments to Kuwait.

 

Actually the reasons for the U.S. invasion of Iraq goes back even further then 1991, it can be traced all the way back to 1917, the English, and World War 1. Britain had wrestled Baghdad from the Ottoman Empire and as Lieutenant General Sir Stanley Maude proclaimed: “our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies…..but as liberators. It is the hope of the British Government that once again the people of Baghdad shall flourish.”

 

However even in 1917 the British Empire had desires on the Iraqi oil fields, and was basically using the war as a way secure those fields for Britain. Now fast forward to 2003 and basically the same message is given to the Iraqi people as the reasons for another foreign invasion. Surely that message was getting to have a familiar ring to it…..even though the British had delivered the same message some 85 years earlier.

 

NOT A TID-BIT OF TRUTH

I’m not sure how many ways that a person can say this…..so I’ll keep it simple, and direct…..there were never any weapons of mass destruction to find. All the rest of the honking means nothing, nada, machts-nix. Talking about what a piss-ant Hussein was is irrelevant, it’s not why the U.S. invaded Iraq…..it was almost all about oil and the footprint that Iraq would give the United States in the region.

 

There was no doubt that Saddam Hussein was a terrible, terrible man and was responsible for thousands of deaths during his reign of terror…..but his vile dastardly deeds were perpetrated either on his people, or his immediate neighbors. He was not a threat to the United States, or the world at large.

 

Did Hussein desire weapons of mass destruction, you bet, did he seek nuclear weapons of some sort, absolutely, but by March of 2003 he didn’t have any. Hussein was a toothless buffoon, incapable of doing much harm to anybody. By 2003 he’d been turned into a joke and could only inflict pain on his own people.

 

The war on Iraq and in Iraq was a war perpetrated preemptively by the Bush administration and his able bodied henchmen. There has been untold billions of dollars realized by a relatively small group of people, and there have been hundreds of thousands of Iraqi’s that have perished because of the war.

 

Is Iraq a better place to live in, in 2014…..well let’s put it this way, the real-estate market isn’t booming, and there really isn’t any border patrol keeping wanna-be Iraqi citizens from crossing the boarders of the country.

 

Dick Cheney is an ass, has always been an ass, and will continue to be an ass until the day that he does everybody a favor and dies. Cheney’s continued defense of the hugely failed military invasion of the country continues to be a testament of how unchecked government and special interests can bankrupt a country financially as well as spiritually. There is a segment of U.S. citizens that still think that it’s ok to torture by any means possible.

HAVE A NICE DAY!

SOMETHING IS REALLY MISSING HERE!

SOMETHING IS REALLY MISSING HERE!

(FRAZER CHRONICLE)

(All the News That Nobody Else Will Print)

Here’s a fraught encounter: one police officer, one civilian and anger felt by one or both. Afterward, it may be hard to sort out who did what to whom. This scenario is repeated at least a thousand times a day throughout the country, and millions of times world-wide. Until we collectively find a way to control our prime-evil tendencies, as a species we’ll need a sort of keeper to control us…..from us.

 

And that primeval tendency that we all seem to have, and sadly do not seem able to control is just one of the issues that is connected with a seeming uptick in police shootings of civilians. With little exception when a cop gets shot and wounded or killed there is an outrage not only from law enforcement, but the political community and the general public as well.

 

Shooting at, or hitting a law enforcement officer cannot be tolerated, the act strikes at the very core of what the United States was founded upon…..a country that operates on a system of law and order, and justice for all.

 

That said, the citizenry of the United States is really in a troubling state of affairs, in this age of 24 hour news, and a minute by minute dissertation of troubling out-spots…..strangely it is impossible to get an accurate number of shooting fatalities by police officers against alleged perpetrators.

 

The United States professes to be the most developed, most affluent, and the guardians of freedom and justice for the world…..yet there is an unknown number of its citizens that are gunned down every year for a plethora of reasons.

 

I can tell you this right now, nobody.....not one American citizen enjoys getting patted down in an airport, on the street, or in his own home…..yet it happens in America every single day of the year. With little exception the average U.S. citizen has a healthy fear of law enforcement, I know that I do.

 

WHAT AMERICAN’S COPS DON’T WANT US TO KNOW

Lately the United States has been acting kind of like a 3^rd world country where citizenry takes to the streets to protest. The U.S. seems to be hovering on becoming a police state, recently the Wisconsin governor threatened to call out the National Guard if protesters got out of control. In Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City crowds were repelled by those city’s police forces.

 

Years ago my brother-in-law got busted for drunk driving, and exhibited a belligerent attitude…..which I believe, and got his butt kicked…..in the drunk tank. He had multiple contusions on his face and head. I think that you’d find little compassion for my brother-in-law except, if was struck in the face, or head, and knocked to the floor; there was a risk that he could have been killed by the fall. Nobody deserves to be killed for drunk driving, or acting like an ass to police…..but the police lost control of their tempers, or took advantage of my brother-in-law, and administered an educational moment to my brother-in-law…..not very smart.

 

The number of civilians shot to death by cops in the United States every year can only be estimated because there isn’t any data base that lists the numbers. Of course if you desire the numbers of police that are killed by gunfire in the line of duty, that information is all over the place.

 

People like me (blog-writers) are left with the fringe reports on the numbers, or those people who seem to have some sort of agenda, and publish numbers that are “to say the least…..tainted.” The FBI issued figures of 461 justifiable homicides in 2013. Jim Fisher a blogger listed 1,146 people shot by cops with 607 killed in 2013, now I ask you, “who do you believe”?

 

I do know this, if 20 people are shot every year by law enforcement in every state (which I feel would be a safe and honest number) that would add up to more than a thousand deaths, and if 10 people were just innocent bystanders, or people shot by mistake…..that would mean that more than 500 people died for no reason…..not a pretty sight.

 

WEAR A BADGE AND VIDEO CAMERA

 

There is talk now and an active movement to have police officers not only wear a badge, but a video camera as well. The move will cost millions, that issue has already been voiced, while other police organizations bemoan how the movement is an affront to the credibility of police personal everywhere.

 

There was a study done in Rialto, California population 99,171 on what effect police officers using body camera’s would do with regards to how cops did their jobs, and on how the civilian population might react. Well my friends in one year there was a decline in the number of complaints lodged against police officer by civilians by a staggering 88%, and that was with only half of the 108 police officers wearing the gadgets.

 

The Rialto police officers used force nearly 60% less often, while those cops without the cameras were twice as likely to use force. And the officers were picked at random with regards to which officers used the cameras.

 

Of course there is a chance for abuse, like leaving a camera off during an incident or erasing the tape, although that is pretty hard to do because of where the receivers are set up. The Rialto top cop, William Farrar says that “video is very transparent…..it’s the whole enchilada”. Amen brother, amen.

HAVE A NICE DAY!

POLICE ALTERING TACTICS

POLICE ALTERING TACTICS

(FRAZER CHRONICLE)

(All the News That Nobody Else Will Print)

I read with interest an article written by Andrew Welsh-Huggins that appeared on the Associated Press news outlet that talked about how police departments throughout the United States are beginning to either change their policies, or are thinking about changes. In the article there was mention of building tensions “running high” over the killings of blacks by police.

 

I got to tell you, this malady (killing people of color) has been going on forever here in the U.S., in fact since the arrival of Chris Columbus back in 1492 people of color have been accosted by white people. Norseman explorer Leif Ericson visited the Americas earlier then Columbus, by about 250 or so years, and I’m sure that the Norseman had their own form of racial injustice, but Columbus is credited with opening up the future United States in the history books…..so lets us leave it the way it’s written.

 

Policing people isn’t an easy job, not when those who administer the policing are concerned first and foremost with control…..the very idea of somebody encroaching on my space is repugnant to many, many of us citizens. But it doesn’t matter, there’s good old Johnny Law with his baton or service revolver laying down the law as it were.

 

I’ve seen some really brutal scenes of police physical abuse perpetrated against kids, girls, women, and old people when it was absolutely not necessary. Whether in person, or on video, the abrasive acts that I’ve seen always made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, and at my age that’s quite a feat.

 

From Detroit, to Chicago, to New York, to Los Angeles, police departments are taking a second look at how they practice their policing activity. Communities like Bend, Oregon; Fort Wayne, Indiana; and Albany, Georgia are also looking at different ways to be less pro-active when it comes to dealing with the day to day activity that police officers usually come in contact with.

 

For the vast majority of cops, the day to day activity of law enforcement is a mundane boring job with much repetitive activity, pretty much like any other job with the one huge exception, cops wear a firearm holstered on their hip. How a police officer reacts to the public that he comes into contact with each day dictates how hard his job is going to be.

 

POLICING ACADEMY TRAINING

Without exception every state in the union has police training academies, colleges or universities for prospective officers, advanced police training as well as retraining of officers. Although every state is different, there are similarities for minimum requirements, not mandated, but some requirements are in place simply because of common sense thinking.

 

Physical and medical requirements, various background checks, some sort of entrant’s examination, usually some legal training, driving skills, special equipment training, and firearm training for new recruits. Police academies basically get recruits prepared for the police force that they will be assigned to upon graduation.

 

There also are police academies on the federal level, while state academies teach potential officers the rigors of policing, there is also an agency in each state that certifies not only academy programs, but in several states, validate individual officers as well.

 

Some states have open enrollment, (anybody can enroll), while others mandate that candidates must first be hired as potential officers. Rules for acceptance vary from state to state, and some states actually have a basic training type situation much like the basic training in the United States military.

 

Sadly there is no set of rules that might govern which type of person is allowed to carry a sidearm and be authorized to use deadly force. There is no across the board requirement for each potential police officer to take and pass a psychological evaluation, a polygraph exam, and far reaching drug screening test. There are states that allow felons the opportunity to become police officers, and many states do not require a Bachelors Degree in Criminal Investigation.

 

LAW ENFORCEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES IS A BIG DEAL

Law enforcement in the United States is one of three major components of the criminal justice system, along with the courts and corrections. Although the three operate independently, the three collectively form a sort of chain leading from investigation of suspect’s criminal activity to administration of criminal punishment. Courts are vested with the power to make legal determinations regarding the conduct of the other two components.

 

There is local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies that are supposed to work in a sort of semi-cooperative atmosphere…..but very seldom do. There are dozens of agencies, and units of agencies within agencies, and within units. If this system sounds complicated, it should because it is…..complicated.

 

The cost of the entire policing agencies in the United States to the taxpayer is staggering, and runs into the trillions each year. There are millions of policing agents in the country, and if they are a brotherhood, and a thin blue-line, they are the biggest brotherhood, and the longest thin blue-line in the world.

 

With very little exception cops do almost whatever they feel is necessary to uphold the laws, and to protect themselves. I don’t like law enforcement and I don’t trust cops, or the judicial system of our country for that matter. Law enforcement, when it comes to convictions is like a National Football League franchise…..they’ll do whatever to secure a win, and sadly in many instances so do the cops, prosecutors and judges.

 

WHY THINGS GO WRONG IN POLICE WORK

Police executives face the consequences of mental and tactical mistakes made by police officers during difficult events. Accurate judgment and effective decision making by police officers under stressful conditions…..two of the most important elements in successful police performance are high perishable skills that are degraded rapidly in the absence of ongoing training and practice.

 

“Mistakes will happen and need to be accepted, the objective is not an organizational culture where officers are not allowed to make mistakes; rather the objective is to learn from the mistakes that occur, and to prevent their recurrence.”

 

The above are excerpts from an article in The Police Chief magazine from July, 2004, and even though the article is a bit more then 10 years old, much of what is said strikingly applies to today’s policing activity that seems to be almost out of control.

 

First and foremost policing agencies, no matter the level, simply can’t make mistakes…..not when the officer has a pistol holstered to his/her side. Cop mistakes, or lapses in judgment for any reason can mean the death of an innocent. There absolutely is no margin for error by law enforcement, and for God’s sake, if there is a mistake, or a bad judgment decision do not exacerbate the situation by tazing somebody, or applying a departmental choke-hold that has been banned, or worse, shooting somebody.

 

I can tell you this for certain, whenever an organization who figures that their members are right in the 1^st place, and wants to be in control in the 2^nd place, and has potential armament at their disposal that can stun, wound, or kill don’t need to change their tactics. They also don’t need to remedy past mistakes, or potential mistakes…..people die at their hands…..in that case, it’s pretty hard to change operating procedures…..there aren’t usually any witnesses.

 

As citizens of the United States, people who are appalled by the actions of law enforcement or prosecutorial community…..like me, need to stand up and be heard. Zero tolerance for mistakes, or of any poor decision during any kind of time is simply unacceptable!

HAVE A NICE DAY!

TROUBLING…..YET ENHANCED!

TROUBLING…..YET ENHANCED!

(FRAZER CHRONICLE)

(All the News That Nobody Else Will Print)

President Barack Obama said it best, “troubling, but enhanced interrogations instead of torture,” talking about a report just out which took some five years to complete by a Senate Select intelligence Committee with regards to how information was gleaned from detainees. Let’s see, if you hit me in the head with a 2x4, no matter what kind of uniform or what your intensions are…..it’s still gonna hurt. Hitting somebody with a piece of board is going to do one thing, and one thing only…..hurt, all of the information that a person might give after that initial whack will be tainted by pain.

 

My reason for the blog, my old friend Rush Limbaugh and his idiotic rants during his radio broadcast (12-9-14). Limbaugh has an agenda, I have an agenda, anybody that get’s up on a soap box has an agenda…..but at least I try and keep an open mind to what people like Limbaugh have to say. Today’s rant was about the select Senate’s report on the CIA’s flawed, brutal and ineffective interrogation practices during the initial days after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

 

I don’t have a staff, I don’t have a radio show, and I’ve only appeared on television four or five times, but I’ve heard from all kinds of military officials talking about the efficiency of enhanced interrogation. With almost no exception top U.S. military brass discards much of the information that is realized by waterboarding, sleep deprivation or some other kinds of disgusting practices that have been employed.

 

Limbaugh talked about the “far left, and Democrats” happily bashing the United States because of the report, and “wanting the demise of the country, and that they jump at any opportunity to do so.” Gee I know scads of liberals, or the far left, come to think of it, I also know a whole host of Democrats…..and I’ve never heard even one say that they “wanted the demise of the United States.”

 

 U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY

Yup, it’s kind of like a city, the different branches of governmental spooks that have been created to safeguard our cities, shores, boarders, and moreover protect us from them. There are 17 departments (that are officially recognized by the U.S) or elements that make up the U.S. security division of the federal government. There is the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), United States Department of Energy, Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (OICI), Department of Homeland Security, Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A), Coast Guard Intelligence (CGI) Homeland Security Investigation (HSI), United States Department of State, Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), United States Department of the Treasury, Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI), United States Department of Defense, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), National Security Agency (NSA), National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency (AFISRA), National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC), United States Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC), Marine Corps Intelligence Activity (MCIA,) Office of Naval Intelligence Activity (ONI), United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Security Branch (FBI/NSB), Drug Enforcement Administration, Office of National Security Intelligence (DEA/ONSI).

 

Can you wrap your lips around all of those listed departments that are used to keep our country safe for us to live in, work in, and play in…..if you can you’re a better person then I am. It took me over an hour to research all of these offices, agencies, and bureaus, and there is still more out there.

 

LET’S TALK A LITTLE REDACTION

One of the strongest practices in U.S. government, or private contractors in the United States intelligence community can be summed up in one simple word…..redaction, a form of editing, of altering slightly a document that will be released to the media, or to the general public. What a redactor, yup that’s right there are actually people who go to redactor’s school to learn their trade of little more than deception.

 

How many times have you read or heard the phrase, “it’s in the best interest of national security to not allow these documents to be read.” Or the best one, “release of this material will endanger loyal Americans who serve in the intelligence community.”

 

I have a simple one word answer to any omissions by the federal government or any agencies that operate with American taxpayer’s money…..balderdash. Thank God kids don’t know about redaction, cause if they did, they’d never be held responsible for the silly, stupid things that they do.

 

When you allow government to redact, you get a scandal like enhanced interrogation, or Abu Ghraib torture, or the Kandahar massacre, or the rapes during the liberation of France in 1944, or the No Gun Ri massacre, or the Dasht-i-Leili massacre in 2001, or My Lai massacre in 1968.

 

Talk about redactions, initially the redactors must have a field day running the above scandals up the old flag pole. It seems that the minute that governmental officials are kind of left to their own devices they go off the reservation, and become totally uncontrollable.

 

The United States employs approximately 900,000 people in its intelligence community while the private intelligence contractors employ roughly 1,200,000. Wow I feel safer already; I never guessed that my freedom was being guarded by more than 2,000,000 people.

 

AND THE COST IS

Surly you’re kidding right, cause if you’re not, you’ll need to set aside a pretty big block of your time to search for the figures. Experts actually have term for how much money is spent on intelligence every year in the United States. Black budgeting covers a multitude of sins…..and I do mean sins, there are what is called intelligence gaps.

 

A governmental report in 2013 estimated that U.S. intelligence agencies budget was $52.6 billion dollars in its secret budget for fiscal year, 2013. It was termed secret because there were so many blind spots that it was impossible for the General Accounting Office, (GAO) to ascertain what the funds were being used for, because of the obscuring intentions and motives of U.S. friends and foes alike.

 

Today there are approximately 1,271 governmental agencies responsible for intelligence gathering and protecting the homeland through the deciphering of that Intel. There are, in addition, 1,931 private companies in 10,000 locations throughout the United States. According to a 2008 study by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, private contractors make up 29% of the workforce of the U.S. intelligence force, but cost the equivalent of 49% of that $52.6 billion dollar budget. And they represent me and my fellow countrymen and women…..get right outta town.

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!

SOMETHING IS REALLY BEING MISSED HERE

SOMETHING IS REALLY BEING MISSED HERE

(FRAZER CHRONICLE)

(All the News That Nobody Else Will Print)

Including the July 17, 2014 strangling death of Eric Garner by New York City policeman, there have been two other high profile deaths attributed to police departments. The August 9^th shooting death of unarmed Michael Brown and the death by gunfire of Tamir Rice, a 12 year old armed with a BB gun. All three were black, while all three of the police officers were white.

 

Surprisingly there has been little protests with regards to the Rice shooting, but of course the same can’t be said about Garner and Brown. There are similarities for each of the shooting incidents; both were black, and a correlation between all three, the cops in attendance feared for their lives

 

Both Garner and Brown were either walking in the street or on the sidewalk while the Rice kid was playing in a public park. I think in all three incidents there wasn’t any adverse activity going on, you can kind of make a case of threatening, the Rice boy looking dangerous because he had what appeared to be a firearm…..but the 911 call told the dispatcher that the gun look like a toy.

 

I watched the video of the Rice shooting several different times and the cop on the passenger’s side of the squad car opened his door and fired his service revolver at Rice…..all in less than 5 seconds. There seemed to be little chance for the Rice kid to capitulate to whatever the cops commands might have been, personally I couldn’t believe what I was watching, that’s how quickly the sequence took.

 

The Eric Garner death took longer, but the results were the same, a United States citizen lost his life at the hands of an American authority figure. There was a video of the Garner incident which was, to me, graphic, you can call what the cop did as a take-down hold, or a chokehold, I can tell you this, the hold looked suspiciously like the chokehold I learned in the military about a hundred years ago.

 

I DEAL IN FACTS

There is little that goes on in our world that is complicated, not when people decide to get down to the bare facts of an issue. I do not think that the United States is in danger of becoming a police state, say like Germany, anyways not at this time. What we have today is a whole bunch of authoritative people that want to keep their positions; for them, in many cases, their perceived power is like a drug, an elixir of life for them.

 

Politicians are much the same as these power mongering individuals that are housed at the top of policing agencies, the military, fire departments, and actually anyone who figures that he/she is irreplaceable. My friends…..everybody is replaceable, even if you have created your own position. There’s always somebody out there who can do your job as good or better.

 

Policing agencies use the crony, or good old boy system to elevate, recruit, and protect their brethren, didn’t you ever wonder why the cops have the same ranking system as the U.S. military, corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, captain and so forth. Right away you get into that attitude that rank has its privilege. I hate to break these jokers bubbles, but politicians, fire fighters, policemen and the military actually are paid by us…..the taxpayers. We appoint, our appointees hire, and are supposed to oversee who is hired, and periodically grade their job performance…..or did you forget that?

 

I can tell you one thing, in New York City, during 2013; the taxpayers incurred $732,000,000 in legal fees for all sorts of police missteps, overreaching their authority, racial profiling, police brutality, and just plain stupid crap. And do you want to know what; the city of New York does not have a corner market when it comes to stupid policing practices.

 

With regards to the size of country’s policing forces, local, regional, state, and federal, the overall legal costs to protect some of these good old boys exceeds a billion dollars a year…..and baby that billion dollars is paid out by who else, the friendly taxpayer. Let’s see, we elect representatives, we pay these representatives, their hire or appoint underlings to do all sorts of fire protection, policing duties, and a thousand other things…..and then our tax dollars pay these underlings, and then, whenever the system breaks, and somebody does a stupid act…..we gotta pay for that too…..wow…..what a scam.

 

The United States is the land of the free, and the home of the brave, right,  we are also the world leader in keeping the peace, and protecting people from despots or dictators…..so why do we need more than 780,000 police in the United States? China has 1,600,000 cops, and Russia has a bit more than 782,000 for the only two countries that seem to need policing protection more than the U.S.

 

I read with interest an account of the police in New York City that appeared in the New York Times which stated that the cops felt betrayed, put upon, and that the reason that Garner lost his life was because he was overweight, out of shape, had numerous health issues, and that if he would have simply capitulated to the officers orders…..he’d still be alive today.

 

EVERYBODY IS MISSING THE REAL POINT HERE

Really the Garner, Brown or Rice killings aren’t the real issue here, each of these people had their lives taken away from them before their time, especially Rice, he was a 12 year old boy. Nobody has the right to take another’s life unless they feel that theirs is in danger of being taken from them. That my friends is the common sense thing here.

 

Both Garner and Brown were big men, over 6’ and in excess of 300#, but the Rice boy was, well 12, and even though one of the cops at the scene of the shooting (in Cleveland) radioed that a 20 year old black man was down, there was a stretch there, unless the 20 year old was a midget.

 

The real rub here is the fact that cops, whether one, six or twenty decided to act with deadly force, “and let’s get over this takedown or chokehold issue, no matter whether Garner was resisting, was out of shape and was a blimp, the actions of the officers did contribute to a death, a death over possibly selling untaxed cigarettes. Come on, get real.

 

The issue here isn’t really a racial issue; anyone with an ounce of gray matter has to admit that cops all over America profile people. Young people, old people, black, whites, Hispanic, Asian, and Muslims, it simply depends on which part of the country that you live in as to whom the cops profile. It may not be right, the fact makes those being profiled uneasy at the very least, and scared at the most.

 

The issue here, the one that most people simply overlook is the fact that peace officers aren’t supposed to be running around with itchy trigger fingers, or bad ass attitudes. Cops only have the authority that we, as citizens of this country allow them to have.

 

Police organizations aren’t supposed to set rules, regulations, and criteria for how they deal with the public…..and guess what; all people aren’t guilty until they prove themselves innocent. But mostly that’s how Mr. John Q Public feels when he is confronted by the cop on the street, or the squad car stops.

 

Tell me, how many of you readers get antsy whenever a cop car is behind you, or is at an intersection, or stops at a business, or building that you are visiting, or work at. Be honest, most everybody would rather never see a cop until you need one.

 

That’s the issue, that’s the tragedy, no matter what anybody says, or feels, cops are usually their own worst enemy. When people get the crap kicked out of them, get wounded or killed, people take notice, and there’s just a little voice in the back of our minds that sets of an alarm wondering if maybe the same could happen to me.

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!

RUSSIA IS A THREAT…..AGAIN

RUSSIA IS A THREAT…..AGAIN

(FRAZER CHRONICLE)

(All the News That Nobody Else Will Print)

I read with interest an article in the Los Angeles Times by Ralph Vartabedian and W.J. Hennigan entitled “Experts call for updated H-bombs”, and frankly the reasons given were hauled out of world history archives…..”Threats from Russia add pressure to develop, test new warheads”.

 

It’s the communist scare all over again, I can remember in grade school when we’d have air attack drills, hiding under our desks, like that little bit of flimsy wood and metal was going to protect a kid from an atomic blast…..even then, in the late 1940s there was gross misunderstanding about an atomic bomb blast.

 

The cold war lasted from sometime in 1947 until it was officially canceled on December 26, 1991 with the primary advocate…..Russia. The Soviet Union had been teetering on the brink of collapse for several years, but finally went over the edge the day after Christmas, 1991. The world rejoiced heroes were applauded; the doves had finally won one for the good old gripper!

 

However over the past 23 years the United States has emerged as the biggest and the baddest of countries in a seeming unending quest for peace through military strength. And now there might be a movement afoot to reignite another confrontation with a splintered Soviet Union…..wow, how little has changed during the bit more than two decades from December, 1991.

 

LET’S UPDATE OUR HYDROGEN BOMBS

So there are new threats from Russia, and the Middle East is a cauldron of mistrust, allegations counter allegations and complete misunderstandings. And like the little kid said, “it’s not my fault” what is a country based on peace, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (the U.S.) supposed to do? Well, the Deputy Secretary of Defense in the Clinton administration, John Hamre, figures that we should get rid of the countries existing arsenal of nuclear warheads, develop new warheads for tests, and regain our rightful place as the world’s preeminent nuclear power.

 

According to Hamre who is now the president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies…..(where do they come up with these organizations?) “We have the worst of all worlds: older weapons and large inventories that we are retaining because we are worried about their reliability.” Representative Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, says, “Not to mention, we’re spending more and more to keep these things going.”

 

Since 1945 the United States has tested 1,132 nuclear devises, 1032 of which have fired, Russia has an even worse record than that of the United States, the Ruskies have tested 981 devises with only 727 successes. France 217-217, the United Kingdom 88-88, China 47-48, India 3-6, Pakistan 2-6, and North Korea 3-3 round out those countries who have tried and succeeded in the testing of nuclear bombs

 

Interestingly the only two nuclear devises that have been used militarily were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945…..of course the perpetrator of this act was the United States. The result was that the two Japanese cities were almost totally leveled, and between 129,000 and 246,000 people died during and after the two blasts.

 

The reason given for the bombing of Hiroshima was the fact that there was a large military garrison that was located in the city; however reports show that most of the people that died were civilians. Nagasaki was a port city, but had only minor military importance, yet was bombed by the United States, costing between 39,000 and 80,000 deaths.

 

I think that it’s important to point out that the number of deaths reported, between 129,000, and 246,000, didn’t all happen during the initial bomb blast. Of course the carnage was horrible at the point that the bombs were detonated, ground zero was littered with vaporized Japanese, and nobody will ever know the exact number who died there.

 

The experts and researchers of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki carnage have painstakingly recounted the bomb sites, and went through millions of records to estimate the numbers who died. However the numbers connected with the two bombings take into account those people who lived for as long as a year after the August 1945 blasts…..its where the numbers come from.

 

THE COSTS…..ASTRONOMICAL

The cost to retrofit or to completely replace the missile and bomb system would be, to the taxpayer astronomical, try $400 billion. At the present time, the Obama administration has earmarked $60 billion for modernization of the country’s Energy Department complex, and to create new warheads, using old components from older weapons.

 

The world has more than enough nuclear weapons to make a wasteland of the planet, give us all a permanent orange tinge, and completely change the way that we, as a people live, love, and endeavor to conduct our daily lives.

 

And rest assured that that $400 billion is only for starters, the U.S. Congress has never seen a dollar that they didn’t want to tax. They remind me of churches and their tithing practices…..you know, 10% for this, 10% of that…..and 10% left for you.

 

Nope my friends, we definitely don’t need proliferation of our nuclear arsenal, we need to get rid of what we’ve got…..the masses of people in the world are basically followers, but 90% of them understand that there aren’t any winners in a nuclear confrontation…..only fried and discolored losers.

 

HAVE A GOOD DAY!

 

HOLY SMOKES COWBOY

HOLY SMOKES COWBOY

(FRAZER CHRONICLE)

(All the News That Nobody Else Will Print)

Hold on just a minute there partner, let’s take a quick look-see at what’s been happening out there on the range, not where the buffalo roam, but where us citizens live our lives every day of the week. Zigging and zagging bullets on a daily basis isn’t quite what we-all had in mind when we left the safety of our folks hacienda…..at least I didn’t.

 

But since the August, 9^th shooting of that monster kid (Michael Brown, 6’-5”, 295 pounds) in Ferguson, Missouri, of this year there has been approximately 2,712 hours, if 3 people die by gunfire for any reason in the United States, gun battles, cop shootings, suicide, gang-banging wars, or by accident, that would mean that 8,136 people have died since the killing of Michael Brown.

 

If 7 people are shot, but don’t die, (wounded by gunfire) either accidentally or intentionally every hour, since the August 9^th incident in Ferguson, Missouri,18,984 people will probably be seeking medical assistance for the wound. Are you sober yet…..pard? It kind of makes that phrase “guns don’t kill people…..people kill people”, a bit hollow. Or to put it another way…..”A person with a stick won’t usually hurt another person unless he sharpens the point.”

 

And now I read about some local hair brained idiot in Austin, Texas letting off with more than 100 rounds of ammo in the downtown area, and tried to set the Mexican Consulate ablaze early Friday morning has died during an altercation with city police. Luckily the gunman, 49 year old Larry McQuilliams targeted buildings instead of people, kind of a novel approach to a shooter that was out of control.

 

CLEVELAND, OHIO…..IT DOESEN’T TAKE LONG TO BECOME CASUALITY

Sometimes the media stretches an incident to fit whatever criteria they figure will sell the most newspapers, or for people to listen, or watch violence on the streets of America. In the case of the shooting of 12 year old Tamir Rice there was no exaggeration, the little boy lasted less than four seconds in his altercation with two of Cleveland’s finest…..and I’m being kind with regards to how long it took for the one cop on the passenger’s side to open his door and drop the pint sized perpetrator.

 

Talk about a judge, jury and executioner, this cop really saved the taxpayers a load of money…..initially, there’s no doubt in my mind that there’ll be a lawsuit that’ll cost five or ten times the amount it would have cost to prosecute the pint sized perp for brandishing a pellet or BB gun.

 

The whole thing started out as a young cowboy, or in Cleveland, probably a street punk, was playing around with his pistol in a way that an innocent bystander thought was a bit over the top, because the bystander didn’t know for sure whether the gun was real or a fake. So he did the intelligent thing, he called 911 and reported “a kid playing around with a gun…..that didn’t look like a firearm, rather it looked fake…..but.

 

Now I got to tell you, “I watched the video of the shooting, and although there’s no sound, the officer on the passenger’s side say’s that “he told the kid three times to “show his hands”. I watched the video four different times, and I’ll be damned if I can figure out how the cop could have said anything three times before the squad car rolled to a stop, the cop stepped out and shot the kid…..there just isn’t enough time.

 

The cop that shot the pint sized gunman is Timothy Loehmann, with less than a year’s active service with the Cleveland City cops. During his training at the Police Academy his pay was $10.50 an hour, and on March 3^rd, his 1^st day on the job, his pay shot up to $45,904.64 per year. Of course everybody knows that what is nice about working in the public sector is the benefits that come along with the increase in pay.

 

Right now Loehmann and the squad car driver, Frank Garmback, are on administrative fully paid leave, and probably sweating little bitty bullets…..especially Loehmann, there can be criminal charges for Loehmann and Garmback, or just Loehmann, only time will tell. But the incident can end both men’s careers in law enforcement, the pensions, health insurance, dental care, vacation time, sick days, and whatever other benefits are accorded city of Cleveland employees.

 

SO WHAT IS THE OBSESSION WITH GUNS…..REAL AND FAKE

I played cowboys and Indians, I played war, we had fake guns, usually hand crafted out of wood (my dad was a carpenter) and I can tell you we never gave a thought to being shot at by the police, and we weren’t menacing looking to anybody in our neighborhood, we were just a bunch of kids playing kids games.

 

I got to say that the Rice kid did look a bit menacing, pointing his fake pistol at people (walkers), buildings, and generally looking kind of aggressive. But after watching him for two or three minutes I figured out that Tamir Rice was exactly what he looked like, a young kid fiddling around with what appeared to be a gun.

 

I feel that I know exactly how those two cops, Garmback and Loehmann, were thinking as they drove up to the scene, “Oh hell, what is this kid about, damn what’ll we do, the report (911 call) says he was dangerous looking, we won’t be taking any chances. Any suspicious moves and he’ll get shot.”

 

And yes, a 12 year old boy got shot to death, and as far as I know he wasn’t breaking any laws of any kind, he was just being an adolescent who died before he had his first date, had an opportunity to excel at school work, play varsity sports…..and dream whatever dream he wanted to dream…..in was an innocent with a stupid fake gun.

 

So how can gun owners, everyday people, people with a job, a wife or husband, 2.5 kids, a cat, dog and a mortgage put up such a fuss when these shootings happen? I’ll tell you, for some it’s a phallic symbol, the big dog syndrome, for others it’s the thrill of a hunt because they never amounted to anything in the real world, and for others, they actually have the misguided opinion that they have a right to keep and bear arms. I hope that those people that I consider friends who have guns only have misguided opinions.

 

Our society, any society who kills more than 30,000 of its own citizens through suicide, accident or intentionally, and wounds another 59,000 can’t control itself. I do not like government telling me what to do, no matter the issue, but I got to tell you, we’re killing way too many of us.

 

In the final analysis, I could really care less how my friends feel about their precious gun rights, nor do I care about whether they like blacks, or figure that every white man should own one. Black people are targeted by law enforcement of that there is no doubt.

 

We need to corral guns, gun advocates, and those organizations and lobbing groups who stand to profit from gun ownership. Call it what it actually is, corporate greed, gun and ammo makers make gazillions every year and they’re leading us American citizens around by our short hairs which are connected to our purse strings. We need to use some common sense to police our police, and also our gun laws.

 

And don’t give me that crap about only criminals will own guns, and how tough a cop’s job is, only criminals having guns is a huge load, and if a cops job was so damned tough…..would somebody please tell me why it’s so hard to get into a policeman’s job…..come on people, wise up already.

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!