HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

"Young men of color" are in the news again...

And it's not for good reasons.

Since the B Hussein Obama regime and his Just-Us Department declared war on local law enforcement in 2014 (actually before that), cops have been reacting. And that is the right word. Officers from many large city departments are not being proactive, just answering their calls for service and otherwise staying "out of trouble". In other words, if someone gets shot from a drug dealer, they will take the report, but they won't be out of their vehicles of there own, which can push the crooks of the street.

The obvious points. One, the people who will be harmed by this work slowdown are "people of color". And two, the Obama regime is happy this is happening. Mr Comey makes some excellent points.

‘Something Deeply Disturbing Is Happening All Across America’

From a speech by Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James B. Comey at the University of Chicago Law School, Oct. 23:

Part of being clear-eyed about reality requires all of us to stare—and stare hard—at what is happening in this country this year. And to ask ourselves what’s going on.

Because something deeply disturbing is happening all across America. I have spoken of 2014 in this speech because something has changed in 2015. Far more people are being killed in America’s cities this year than in many years. And let’s be clear: far more people of color are being killed in America’s cities this year. And it’s not the cops doing the killing.

We are right to focus on violent encounters between law enforcement and civilians. Those incidents can teach all of us to be better. But something much bigger is happening. Most of America’s 50 largest cities have seen an increase in homicides and shootings this year, and many of them have seen a huge increase. These are cities with little in common except being American cities—places like Chicago, Tampa, Minneapolis, Sacramento, Orlando, Cleveland, and Dallas...

You are wrong there Mr. Comey, these cities have several things in common. First and foremost, they are Democratic machine cites that haven't had a Republican administration in decades. And they are "majority-minority" cities. And the young "men of color" mainly come from broken homes, where they are "raised" by their mothers, or often by their grandparents.

In Washington, D.C., we’ve seen an increase in homicides of more than 20% in neighborhoods across the city. Baltimore, a city of 600,000 souls, is averaging more than one homicide a day—a rate higher than that of New York City, which has 13 times the people. Milwaukee’s murder rate has nearly doubled over the past year.

And who’s dying? Police chiefs say the increase is almost entirely among young men of color, at crime scenes in bad neighborhoods where multiple guns are being recovered.

That’s yet another problem that white America can drive around, but if we really believe that all lives matter, as we must, all of us have to understand what is happening. Communities of color need to demand answers. Police and civilian leaders need to demand answers. Academic researchers need to hit this hard.

What could be driving an increase in murder in some cities across all regions of the country, all at the same time? What explains this map and this calendar? Why is it happening in all of different places, all over and all of a sudden? . . .

Nobody says it on the record, nobody says it in public, but police and elected officials are quietly saying it to themselves. And they’re saying it to me, and I’m going to say it to you. And it is the one explanation that does explain the calendar and the map and that makes the most sense to me.

Maybe something in policing has changed. In today’s YouTube world, are officers reluctant to get out of their cars and do the work that controls violent crime? Are officers answering 911 calls but avoiding the informal contact that keeps bad guys from standing around, especially with guns?

I spoke to officers privately in one big city precinct who described being surrounded by young people with mobile phone cameras held high, taunting them the moment they get out of their cars. They told me, “We feel like we’re under siege and we don’t feel much like getting out of our cars.” I’ve been told about a senior police leader who urged his force to remember that their political leadership has no tolerance for a viral video.

So the suggestion, the question that has been asked of me, is whether these kinds of things are changing police behavior all over the country. And the answer is, I don’t know. I don’t know whether this explains it entirely, but I do have a strong sense that some part of the explanation is a chill wind blowing through American law enforcement over the last year. And that wind is surely changing behavior...

No Mr. Comey, you do know the answer but you don't want to speak it. Cops are humans too and they react to stimuli as any other person and for the last almost seven years the federal government has been in a war on local law enforcement, so the cops are reacting. They are doing just what is required, but being a lot less proactive.

Mr. Comey, you've seen the recent overreaction to a deputy trying to take an unruly kid out of a class and he was fired within 24 hours. That man may get his job back or may not. But other officers will look at that incident and stay "screw that", let the schools deal with these kids.

Many bad things have happened to American culture since the disaster of the Great Society, chief among them the destruction of the black family. Children are born but not raised except by the gangs and multiple generations have only know the cycle of poverty, the inner city culture hostile to education and advancement exemplified by the term "acting white". And now many of the angry young blacks (and Latinos) look upon the police (no matter what the color of the officer) as an occupying force. And if the policing force sees hostile locals to one side and multiple levels of administration ready to thrown them under the bus behind them, the decision is pretty easy. And the ones who will suffer the most are the people trying to live in these inner city hell holes.

Thanks Josh P. for the link.

Henry V shows what leadership is....

I've often said leadership can be defined by a two word phrase, "Follow Me!" And while The Bard also said brevity is the soul of wit, he wasn't brief here. And no one has said it better. The greatest speech to rouse men in a desperate hour. Henry V at Agincourt, October 25, 1415.

WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here

But one ten thousand of those men in England

That do no work to-day!

KING. What’s he that wishes so?

My cousin, Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;

If we are mark’d to die, we are enow

To do our country loss; and if to live,

The fewer men, the greater share of honor.

God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.

By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,

Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;

It yearns me not if men my garments wear;

Such outward things dwell not in my desires.

But if it be a sin to covet honor,

I am the most offending soul alive.

No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.

God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honor

As one man more methinks would share from me

For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!

Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,

That he which hath no stomach to this fight,

Let him depart; his passport shall be made,

And crowns for convoy put into his purse;

We would not die in that man’s company

That fears his fellowship to die with us.

This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,

Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,

And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

He that shall live this day, and see old age,

Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors,

And say “To-morrow is Saint Crispian.”

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,

And say “These wounds I had on Crispin's day.”

Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,

But he’ll remember, with advantages,

What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,

Familiar in his mouth as household words-

Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,

Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-

Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.

This story shall the good man teach his son;

And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be remembered-

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition;

And gentlemen in England now-a-bed

Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

What your really hear on our radio...

A few months ago I spent the early hours of Saturday, August 29, 2015, hours listening to the Harris County Sheriff's Office when the manhunt was going on for the murderer of Deputy Goforth. You could feel the tension of all the cops on the air, as they were looking for a red Ford Ranger. One Ranger after another. Until he found the suspect later that day.

But most of the sounds on a cop's radio are not like that. It's pretty mundane. And this article from the Houston Chronicle shows this well. How almost all of what we need to do is just, for lack of a better term, routine!

The urgent, crucial banality of cops' jobs

This week I monitored chatter on a police radio scanner, and reported the mild mayhem that transpires every Houston night.

That's not what I normally do here at the Chronicle, but my colleague took vacation, and I took his shift. So I showed up every morning at 5:30 a.m. and followed along as the Houston Police Department dispatch radioed assignments to officers in the field.

The week changed my perception of police.

My earliest impressions came from Hollywood films about heroic bad boys and their chases, raids and shoot-outs with criminal menaces. More recently, those were mixed with media portrayals of brutal oppressors, reigning over minority communities with an iron fist too quick to pull the trigger.

But my week of direct observation showed nothing like either of those stereotypes. Listening to the scanner brought to mind the patient ladies who patrolled my elementary school cafeteria at lunch hours, saying the same things every single day: don't squirt ketchup at each other, please stop yelling, you cannot stand on the table, keep your hands to yourself, no throwing food.

Here are some things I heard on scanner this week:

• "The caller said there's a man in his underwear on the sidewalk yelling at people passing by." Over the week, some variation of that incident happened several times a day.

• Officers were sent to a scene where citizens had detained an injured dog.

• On several occasions, officers escorted people out of the roadways, where they were disrupting traffic.

• "There's someone throwing rocks at passing cars."

• Abusive boyfriends. Lots and lots of abusive boyfriends. Abusive boyfriends that had locked callers in their houses, or are threatening to kill them.

• People yelling vulgar things in public places, like a Denny's.

• Officers went to direct traffic at a broken stoplight, where drivers apparently were unable to organize themselves.

• Lots of road debris — metal, rocks, concrete, trash — on the highways. It had to be moved.

• People passed out in public places.

• Parents called for help getting their truant teenagers to school.

• Lots of people threatening suicide.

• Lots of people threatening homicide.

• Lots of people fighting in public.

• Several patients escaped from hospitals or other institutions.

• Many people making too much noise before sunrise.

• "Caller says a man won't leave her front yard."

During this week, there were no reports that an officer had fired a weapon. There were car chases — multiple nightly — but they rarely lasted more than 10 minutes before the suspect crashed. There were also major investigations wrapped up, leading to the arrest of accused murders.

The vast majority of what the police did focused on maintaining order at a very basic level.

This would be an ugly place without them.

Well put.

Sovereign Citizen video

Good overview of the Sovereign Citizen movement and the danger they present. At just past 7 minutes you get to how two West Little Rock AR officers were murdered by these people.

Not exactly Houston's Finest...

Saw this today and being a field training supervisor we have to agree that sometime we have people with "issues" make it on the street. Thankfully he's no longer on the street.

Ex-Houston cop gets year in jail for asking to lick woman’s feet

HOUSTON (AP) — A suburban Houston school district police officer who pulled over a female motorist and then asked to lick her feet has been sentenced to 1 year in jail.

Patrick Quinn, a 27-year-old former Cypress-Fairbanks school district police officer, pleaded guilty to official oppression. He was sentenced on Wednesday in Houston.

According to court documents, Quinn stopped the woman in August 2014 and found marijuana paraphernalia but told her he had a foot fetish and would release her if she let him lick her feet or give him her underwear. Investigators say he then changed his mind and let her go.

The fact he is now a convicted felon will insure he cannot be a cop somewhere else. Good riddance.

Forecasting Japan Part 3: Forecasting Japan: The Failure of Reform, September 30, 2015

Summary

Editor's Note: Since the end of the Cold War, the Pacific Rim has seen China rise and Japan stagnate. However, Japan is approaching an epochal shift that will enable it to challenge the current order. This analysis is the third in a four-part a series that forecasts the nature of that shift and the future of Japan. Part two examined the rise of China and its impact on Japan.

As the strategic situation in the Pacific changes, Japan will be forced to adapt. Tokyo will need to pull the Japanese economy out of stagnation and cultivate a dynamic set of new industries while luring back businesses that have gone overseas. Current Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has an ambitious plan to do just that – but the strategy has so far foundered, and in the long term it will likely fail.

Analysis

"Abenomics" aims to revive Japan's economy through three measures: monetary easing to devalue the yen, fiscal stimulus, and structural reforms. By devaluing the yen, the prime minister hopes to revive consumer spending by reversing consumer expectations of continually falling prices after years of stagnant-to-negative inflation. A weaker yen would also make Japanese exports more globally competitive and increase the value of overseas corporate earnings repatriated to Japan. Fiscal stimulus will include direct government investment into infrastructure development, defense and other sectors. The measures would also include corporate tax cuts and reforms aimed at stemming the flow of investment overseas while attracting greater foreign investment.

The last set of initiatives, structural reforms, aim to improve worker productivity by loosening the regulation of full-time workers, deregulating protected sectors such as agriculture and power to increase competition domestically, and expanding international free trade agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In addition to the "three arrows," the Abe administration is trying to encourage the autonomy and competitiveness of Japan's different regions and cultivate a startup culture.

Abenomics is still in its early stages. The next two years will be critical in determining whether Abe's plan will succeed. But there are numerous factors that will constrain Abenomics and could derail the program completely.

The Japanese economy's most serious problem for the next decade will be high and rising underemployment. For 20 years, this has been the key driver behind declining average household consumption and a drag on consumer spending. Weak consumer spending, combined with expected population decline, limits the Japanese government's ability to boost corporate investment at home.

Each of the arrows has aspects meant to raise employment. Monetary easing seeks to boost the value of Japanese corporate earnings overseas to raise earnings for major conglomerates and free up bandwidth for them to invest domestically if they choose to do so. As part of fiscal stimulus, Abe aims for corporate tax cuts to create stronger incentives for these conglomerates to invest capital domestically rather than put it into savings or reinvest it abroad. Finally, structural reforms seek to ensure that when companies invest domestically, they are free to do so in ways that will maximize productivity and profitability, even if it means cutting back on long-standing workforce privileges.

Insufficient, Unpopular Measures

This strategy will fail for a number of reasons. The simplest is that Abenomics will not compel Japanese companies to sufficiently expand domestic investment. Companies went abroad to avoid the extremely high cost of manufacturing in Japan, much of it due to high labor costs. China is both a key market for the products produced by these companies and has a strong production base with low labor costs.

To date, Abe's policies (particularly monetary easing) have done as much damage to ordinary Japanese consumers as they have helped, simply because they have raised prices. The main reason that this damage has not politically crippled the administration is that low energy prices have given consumers a boost. Large corporations with overseas operations have benefited from a weak yen, but ordinary Japanese consumers and small businesses with domestic operations have only experienced rising costs. Base-pay hikes at major Japanese companies will help boost consumer spending in the second half of 2015, as will the recovery from last year's consumption tax hike, but given Japan's employment situation it is unlikely that these wage hikes will make a significant, lasting difference in consumption levels. At the same time, demographic decline will drive down the number of potential consumers more quickly each year.

Abenomics will also likely fail to boost domestic investment by Japan's industrial conglomerates. One solution would be to bring in investment from non-Japanese companies overseas. This would require the deep deregulation of long-protected industries, a relaxation of labor controls and the uprooting of deep cultural norms. It would also require Japan's accession to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the rapid development of a Japanese Silicon Valley. Together, such radical moves could be enough to draw substantial investment away from the United States, Europe, South Korea and China in just over a decade. Such a scenario, however, would need measures much broader by far than anything Abenomics has considered. It would mean a revolutionary break with the post-World War II order and truly profound adjustments. Such changes would encounter substantial opposition from the industrial keiretsu (Japan's powerful integrated business groups) and key electoral constituencies. More likely, overseas investment into Japan will remain around current negligible levels: $2.3 billion in 2013 compared with $135 billion in outbound investment.

Laying aside the need for more ambitious measures, several short-term factors could undermine even the basic reforms that Abe wants to roll out. The Bank of Japan is currently purchasing bonds at a high rate. It is unclear how much longer this can continue before the market tightens to the point of dysfunction. If the Bank of Japan is forced to pull back before inflation reaches the 2 percent target, Japan could experience a return to deflation. If the Bank of Japan's rapid purchase of debt leads to a debt default or some other catastrophic event, it could well trigger the fundamental break in Japan's current order that Stratfor anticipates. However, a default is unlikely.

But more pressing than these financial considerations is the potential erosion of public support for Abenomics and for the administration itself. Without a surge in corporate investment and a hike in full-time jobs to counterbalance it, Abenomics will have primarily negative effects on the population's quality of life. The initiatives would reduce the value of savings, raise the cost of living, contribute to perceptions of rising inequality and leave the workforce vulnerable to layoffs. The last of these will most acutely harm the very corporate employees that form the backbone of the Liberal Democratic Party's "organized vote." The electorate is already uneasy about the prime minister's reforms and many voters have continued to support the Liberal Democratic Party only because the opposition is hopelessly fragmented. Their negative perceptions will only grow given the outlook for corporate investment and consumer spending. Thus, Abenomics in its current form probably will not last beyond 2017.

COPYRIGHT: STRATFOR.COM

SNL does it again

I call it my guilty pleasure and it's still not as good as the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players, but here it knocks it out of the park.

Forecasting Japan: China Rises, September 29, 2015

Forecasting Japan: China Rises

Japan's current political order is a holdover from the Cold War, when the country was buoyed by U.S. strategy in the Pacific. But when that configuration changed dramatically after the fall of the Soviet Union, Japan continued to cling to the old system – it had no other option. Tokyo is now looking ahead to a future of demographic decline and increased government spending. While Japan will likely be able to manage these issues, the country's slow-burning internal crisis will begin to interact with broader regional shifts in the next 5-10 years, the most important of which is the ongoing transformation of China. The external changes in Japan's region will ultimately cause the country's internal political order to undergo an epochal shift of its own.

Through the Cold War and beyond, Japan has been able to pursue a foreign policy centered on economic competition and cooperation rather than defense and security. External allies like the United States protected both the home islands and Japanese economic interests overseas. But things are changing, and Japan's mercantilist foreign policy will soon be insufficient to meet its strategic needs.

China, of course, is the new factor. Since the end of the Cold War, Japan's neighbor has transformed from an isolated and impoverished pariah state into the world's second-biggest economy and Asia's largest. China has been the demographic center of East Asia for millennia and, for most of its history, it was also the regional hegemon. However, in the middle of the 19th century, internal and external pressures drove China into one of its periodic cycles of political fragmentation, social upheaval and introversion. Although China reunified in 1949, the preceding century of chaos had left its economy in tatters, preventing China from translating its demographic heft into regional economic, political or military dominance throughout the 20th century. Now Beijing is building on its economic strength to accrue diplomatic influence and military power, and it has begun to pose a serious challenge to the U.S.-led Pacific alliance structure of the Cold War era.

But China's newfound power rests on a shaky foundation. Beijing faces mounting social, economic and political strain at home. A number of factors have contributed to China's current crisis. Internally, there are profound economic imbalances and intense regional tensions. China is also uniquely dependent on overseas supplies of energy and raw materials to sustain its industrial plants, and for the next decade, it will be heavily reliant on foreign consumption of Chinese-manufactured goods. Historically, China enjoyed a surplus of domestic natural resources relative to its economic needs. This allowed generations of Chinese leaders, most notably Mao Zedong, to close the country off in times of internal turmoil. Because China is now reliant on imported inputs, the country has little choice but to press outward to protect its overseas assets, interests and personnel and to ensure the security of crucial sea lines of communication.

Consequently, the next 5-10 years will be a period of extraordinary strain for China. The Communist Party of China will continue its attempt to transition to a new economic model grounded in robust domestic consumption, high value-added manufacturing and service industries. The process will require Beijing to substantially change core aspects of its existing political and economic model, and the Chinese government will need to implement all of these disruptive changes amid a sustained slowdown in low-end manufacturing and housing construction. The government has long relied on these two sectors to maintain economic growth and employment. At the same time, the country will need to metabolize the staggering levels of local government and corporate debt accrued over decades of rapid investment-led growth and extensive capital misallocation.

Beijing's task is not impossible, but it will need to perfectly coordinate several complex maneuvers to achieve success. To manage these shifts, the government will dramatically centralize power, essentially becoming a dictatorship – a process that is already underway. China's new order might also entail promoting nationalism as a means of maintaining social cohesion, likely at Japan's expense. China shares its sea lines of communication with Japan, and the Chinese military has already become increasingly proactive in defending its territories. For Japan, this is a fearsome prospect.

Shifting U.S. Strategies

China's rise will coincide with a change in the United States' strategic posture in the Pacific Rim. Since it became the leading superpower at the end of World War II, the United States has enforced its position by securing global sea-lanes, maintaining a permanent U.S. military presence along key regional fault lines, and on occasion, directly intervening to maintain the balance of power. The United States wants to prevent the emergence of a rival regional hegemon anywhere in the world.

Washington's strategic imperatives in the Pacific will not change, but its methods will. The United States will transition gradually in the coming years toward indirect and less costly ways of enforcing its writ. This will mean devolving responsibility to regional partners such as the Philippines, Australia, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.

The United States' shift is already beginning to push its allies in East Asia to become much more proactive in defending their security interests. Japan is at the forefront of this movement. In late 2012, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe launched an initiative to revive Japan's regional economic, diplomatic and military standing. Since that time, Japan has made strides in regional diplomacy and military expansion and normalization. Still, to be successful, Japan will need to dramatically expand its efforts.

Throughout history, economic power and military power have been intertwined. In the 20th century, industrialization, combined with the technological limitations of ballistics, placed a premium on volume. However, since the final years of the 20th century, the quality of weaponry has become more important than the quantity. Vast fleets of large military vessels traveling long distances will continue to decline in significance, while precision-guided weapons platforms supported by space-based guidance systems will become increasingly important.

Meeting Japan's Military Needs

To play a role in 21st-century Pacific regional security, Japan will need to cultivate and sustain a cutting-edge domestic computing industry. To do this, Tokyo could start by increasing spending and public-private partnerships in defense research and development. It could also increase cooperation, intelligence sharing and technological connections with the United States. But Japan will also need to form a broader fabric of innovation and experimentation in computing technologies upon which the state can draw in times of need.

Although Japan has long excelled at advanced manufacturing and is still at the forefront of robotics, the country has struggled to gain a comparable footing in Internet-based computing. Japan's enduring Cold War order — an order defined by the close relationship between the government and major business groups, the keiretsu — is part of the problem. Keiretsu have hampered the efforts of successive Japanese leaders to open Japan to greater outside competition and investment, a factor that will need to change if the country is to encourage innovation in computing. Tokyo will also need to foster Silicon Valley-style tech startups, cultivate entrepreneurship and educate its workforce in the relevant disciplines.

Maintaining and widening its technological edge against regional rivals will require Japan to make significant changes to its domestic job market, changes the country has avoided thus far because of the mildness of its current economic stagnation. Tokyo will need to address the stark rise in underemployment Japan has seen in recent years. The total portion of Japanese employed in part-time jobs rose from 29 percent of the workforce to nearly 38 percent between 2002 and 2014. The offshoring of Japanese manufacturing activity over the past two decades has only added to the country's employment problem. Anecdotal evidence indicates that over the past 20 years, many major Japanese electronics and advanced manufacturing companies that once dominated Japan's economy (and accounted for a sizable chunk of domestic employment) have downsized their domestic workforces, at least in manufacturing, while expanding their share of overseas employees.

The Japanese economy will not necessarily have to grow for Japan to buffer against China and play a leading regional role, but it will need to become much more dynamic. This will mean channeling the nation's dwindling working-age population into cutting-edge industries, something that will also be critical to maintaining domestic political order as the shrinking workforce bears the burden of caring for an aging population. How Japan responds to external pressures, and whether its response is adequate, will be determined largely on the basis of what happens to its economy over the next 5-10 years, the period in which Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's reforms will play out.

Officer Down

Detective Brent L. Hanger
Washington State Patrol
End of Watch: Thursday, August 6, 2015
Age: 47
Tour: 17 years
Badge # 938

Detective Brent Hanger suffered a fatal heart attack while hiking into a remote area of Chinook Pass, near Yakima, to investigate reports of a marijuana growing operation.

He began to suffer chest pains and shortness of breath. Other detectives who were with him immediately called for assistance and started CPR after he collapsed, but were unable to revive him.

Detective Hanger had served with the Washington State Patrol for 17 years. He is survived by his wife and six children.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Nemo me impune lacessit

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

The YouTube Effect on cops...

I can personally attest to the fact cops are close to paranoid about being videotaped on the street. Before you get off the scene the ugly side of law enforcement, such as having to take suspect down hard, is shown as "police oppression". The fact he was resisting, refused to pull his hands, was about to flee is not part of the initial upload and the race baiters don't like to see full stories.

Now we have another conference of geniuses to discuss the problem of law enforcement. Selected parts with commentary.

‘YouTube effect’ has left police officers under siege, law enforcement leaders say

Chiefs of some of the nation’s biggest police departments say officers in American cities have pulled back and have stopped policing as aggressively as they used to, fearing that they could be the next person in a uniform featured on a career-ending viral video.

That was the unifying — and controversial — theory reached Wednesday at a private meeting of more than 100 of the nation’s top law enforcement officers and politicians.

With homicide rates soaring inexplicably this year in dozens of U.S. cities, the group convened by new U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch concluded with a brief news conference promising a robust response to the reversal of decades of falling violent crime rates.

But for hours preceding that, mayors, police chiefs, U.S. attorneys and even FBI Director James Comey privately vented in a Washington ballroom that they don’t really understand the alarming spike in murders and applause filled the room when mayors said police officers’ sinking morale could be a factor...

You think. Back in my Army days we were discussing what morale means to a soldier and a unit and a classmate behind me knocked it out of the park. "Sir, a man's morale determines if he stands and fights or if he runs." Same with police on the street. If we have one politician after another basically accusing police of assault, murder and malfeasance in officer do you think the cop will stick his neck out? He's got a career, family, pension and future to protect. The politicians can always get another appointment somewhere.

"...Could the root cause be drugs? Guns? Gangs? Perhaps a little of each, said Chuck Wexler, a former top officer in Boston and head of the Police Executive Research Forum.

Wexler tried to sum up the day-long discussion for Lynch, who arrived near the end. But there was another problem, he told her, one that hits closer to home for the nation’s top cop.

“Perhaps the most difficult to calibrate, but the most significant,” he said, “is this notion of a reduction in proactive policing.”

Police chiefs and elected leaders from Baltimore, Chicago, New York and St. Louis were more blunt:

“We have allowed our police department to get fetal and it is having a direct consequence,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel told Lynch. “They have pulled back from the ability to interdict … they don’t want to be a news story themselves, they don’t want their career ended early, and it’s having an impact.”

You don't say Rahm. You're an absolute genius.

There is no evidence of a broad retraction of police engagement with the public in major cities, and no participant in Wednesday’s summit presented a single example of lackluster policing that somehow contributed to a violent crime.

Rather, chiefs and elected officials spoke broadly of a changed atmosphere in major city police departments over the past year amid high-profile police-involved shootings and in-custody deaths that led to riots in Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore.

Chiefs said patrol officers still do their jobs, clocking in and policing their beats. But fewer take extra steps such as confronting a group loitering on a sidewalk late at night that might glean intelligence or lead to arrests, for fear that any altercations that ensued would be uploaded to the Internet.

New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton called it the “YouTube effect” that has emerged for officers post-Ferguson and, in New York, after the death of Eric Garner last year after he was put in a chokehold by an officer making an arrest.

I notice two things here. One, the cities where the issue is really coming up are all in the North. All run by big city Democratic machines. And all run by politicians who look, to a large degree, as the cops as the enemy. And two, tying into this, I didn't see one quote from the country's biggest mayor, Bill de Blasio. You know, the man who implied his black son has more to fear from the cops than the crooks. And who has openly courted New York's greatest race baiting poverty pimp, Al Sharpton. Maybe he was there and the paper didn't write anything on HIZONORDAMAER, but I doubt it.

If cops believe they are the targets of federal law enforcement for doing their jobs (See Ferguson, Baltimore and New York) they will recede and just do the minimum needed to preform their duties. Effective law enforcement requires cops on the street taking initiative. You punish initiative like many departments are doing now, the criminals will fill the void.

A look at the value of your labor.

Friend, fellow Army officer and writer of deep thought Mike Ford had an excellent article piece published by The American Thinker. Please have a read

Your Property Is You

By Mike Ford

In an article titled "Will Property Crime Uptick become Crime Wave?," Debra J. Saunders opines that a recent small rise in property crimes could be a harbinger of a much larger and more violent growth. Ms. Saunders does a straightforward job in explaining how reducing the punishments for some "property" crimes from felonies to misdemeanors is going to have the unintended consequence of increasing violent crimes.

I agree with her, but that is not the problem – it's a symptom.

The real problem is the unstated presumption in Saunders's article that there is an actual, substantive difference between property crimes and violent crimes – or, as they are referred to in law enforcement, "persons" crimes. When it comes down to it, there is little if any difference. Both categories bring harm to others, varying only by degree.

It took me a long time to understand this. Like many people, I considered persons crimes more heinous than "mere" property crimes. After all, "stuff" isn't nearly as important as a human being.

I had my epiphany a little over twenty years ago, when my wife and I made a personal commitment not to go into credit card debt to pay for Christmas. I worked several overtime details to make sure Santa Claus was adequately funded. My oldest daughter wanted a bicycle, her first. With a bit of extra effort, I was able to get her one...the Barbie model, with "pink streamers and everything, Daddy!"

Not two weeks after Christmas, in the middle of the day, someone came into my backyard and stole my daughter's new bike. She was crushed. What else could I do but go buy her another?

As I worked voluntary overtime to come up with the cash for a replacement, it struck me that what was stolen wasn't just a $150 bicycle. What was stolen was the piece of my life I had to spend to earn the cash to buy it...twice. In that regard, this petty theft was really a crime of violence, a persons crime.

Now look at the Constitution. Four different amendments specifically give property equal regard as with liberty and people.

3rd Amendment: No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

4th Amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

5th Amendment: No person shall...be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

14th Amendment: ... nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law[.]

Why did the founders believe this way? My experience with my daughter's stolen bike got me halfway to the answer. I realized that, in a manner of speaking, property is a form of stored labor. Somebody, somehow had to work to get the money to purchase that property. In that regard, property represents so many hours of a person's life. It follows naturally that taking property could be considered taking a portion of someone's life.

Before John Locke, the common belief was that there was a "divine right of kings." This divine right stated that all rights, liberties, and properties were held by the king. His subjects were permitted to use them only at his pleasure. Of course, the king could revoke such a right at any time. As Mark Levin has noted, John Locke and a few of his contemporaries espoused a radically different paradigm: that certain rights resided in the individual. These rights were "natural rights" that were inherent long before, and regardless of, the existence of government.

Our Founding Fathers took Locke's philosophy regarding life, liberty, and property and sprinkled it liberally throughout the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. This equal billing of these three fundamental rights continued until the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. After that point, personal and property liberties came to be treated differently and unequally. One recent and truly egregious example of this is Civil Asset Forfeiture Laws, whereby a citizen merely suspected but not convicted of a crime may have his property confiscated and must prove innocence, at his own expense, to get it back. Another is the recent Kelo decision by the Supreme Court, whereby property can be taken from one citizen because the state (city, county, or state) can obtain more tax revenues from another, a clear violation of the intent of the takings clause of the Constitution.

It's time that we all as Americans understand that property is a significant part of liberty. It's time we all insist that the possession of property is a part of being a human being. Your property is your labor. Your property is you.

One of the points liberals just don't get is that your rights are not something granted to you and they are shocked when I enlighten them that the Constitution grants no rights. It protects from the government your rights, which are part of you, "endowed by their creator". Liberals just don't get that there is something above the government. Then again, government is their god.

Great article Mike, hope to post more in the future.

This is how to handle this waste of sperm

Kidnaping, robbery and rape. Yea, I think he's beyond redemption. But at least in this court he will get justice.



Seven life terms and 270 years. Gotta piss you off that he won't serve half of it! :)

Thank you judge for keeping this animal off the streets.

Forecasting Japan: A Slow-Burning Crisis: Part 1, September 28, 2015

Summary

Editor's Note: Since the end of the Cold War, the Pacific Rim has seen China rise and Japan stagnate. However, Japan is approaching an epochal shift that will enable it to challenge the current order. This analysis is the first in a four-part a series that forecasts the nature of that shift and the future of Japan.

Japan is waking up. For two decades, the island nation has been relatively removed from both regional and global affairs. Now it is in the earliest stages of a push to re-establish itself as a leading power in the Pacific Rim, a role that will require it to make some significant internal adjustments. Over the past 150 years, Japan's political order has undergone three such overhauls. Each came as a reaction to profound changes in the international system: the entrance of European powers into East Asia, the rise of fascism in Europe and the beginning of the Cold War.

As the Cold War ended, Japan began to stagnate. Previously, Japan had managed to thrive by modeling its internal order to adapt to regional geopolitics. This time, however, no coherent order emerged in the Pacific Rim, so Tokyo maintained its Cold War status quo. Japan's maladapted holdover order quickly entered a 20-year slow-burning crisis that has come to be known as the "Lost Decades." It is this period of crisis that is now coming to an end.

No single force will bring about the end of the Lost Decades. Instead, a number of circumstances will coincide, ushering in a new Japanese order. Over the next 10 years, the status quo will change as Japan adapts to the rise of China and changing U.S. expectations for Pacific allies. Meanwhile, economic and demographic pressures will mount on Tokyo. However, the direct antecedents of Japan's coming break will be the contradictions that lie within its current stagnant order. Understanding this situation is the first step in forecasting the future of Japan.

Analysis

Despite its strong economic performance in the 1970s and 1980s, Japan foundered in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War. A succession of asset bubbles and financial crises in the 1990s and 2000s further undermined the country's economic growth. But leaders had little incentive to make the necessary reforms to political institutions or foreign policy: Despite the sluggish economy, quality of life for voters was high and external threats were few. For the first time in its modern history, Japan did not know what to do, did not need to do much and therefore did nothing. The political and economic order designed for an earlier era persisted and became Japan's new status quo, gradually fraying at the edges but stable enough to endure.

Japan's now-ailing Cold War configuration rests on two pillars: integrated business groups known as "keiretsu" and an autonomous, effective and powerful bureaucracy. Both of these interest groups have maintained strong ties with the Liberal Democratic Party, which has controlled the government for all but six of the past 60 years. The enduring power of the party rests on its ability to mobilize keiretsu employees in elections and its connections within the bureaucracy.

During the Cold War, Japan's political order leaned heavily on the support of the United States, which needed a strong Japan to serve as a key ally in the Pacific. To bolster Japan, the United States granted it a variety of benefits including open access to U.S. markets while allowing Tokyo to shelter its own market and implement policies to maintain artificially low-cost exports. The United States also shared defense and computing technology, fueling Japan's electronics and high-tech booms. When the Cold War began to wind down, the U.S. approach shifted from support to quiet containment.

The 1985 Plaza Accord embodied this shift. The landmark agreement between the United States, France, West Germany and Japan allowed the U.S. dollar to depreciate relative to the yen and deutsche mark to bring the United States out of recession by curbing U.S. inflation and making its exports more cost competitive. But the deal was a bad one for Japan. The rapid rise in the yen's value against the dollar between 1985 and 1987 undermined the low-cost export sector and sparked an enormous asset price bubble in Japan. When that bubble finally burst in 1990, it triggered a banking sector crisis that sent Japan's GDP growth tumbling from an average of 5-7 percent annually in the mid-1980s to near-zero percent by 1993, initiating the first of Japan's Lost Decades.

Fueled by newfound purchasing power, Japanese investment began to move overseas into developed markets. Many companies also moved operations to take advantage of low-cost labor in Thailand and China. Such offshoring has continued over the past few decades, undermining the domestic job market.

Stifled Reforms

Since the 1990 banking crisis, Tokyo has made several attempts to revive economic growth through fiscal stimulus and structural reforms. All have failed; Japan's problems require much deeper structural reforms. Though leaders have tried to make these reforms, they have been constrained time and again by the alliance between business, bureaucracy and the Liberal Democratic Party.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, for example, pushed strongly for reform from 2003 to 2006. He attempted to break Japan's Cold War-era order to clear the way for necessary change. His efforts largely failed, as have those of other reformers, and Japan has remained stagnant. Because the country has failed to alter its fundamental order, Japan essentially has not grown since 1994. The country has managed to maintain high levels of overall employment, but a growing share of these jobs are part time. In the 1990s, part-time workers represented less than 20 percent of the workforce, but by 2014, this number had risen to nearly 38 percent. Meanwhile, Japan's sovereign debt has grown substantially since 1994 as Tokyo has borrowed to maintain the bureaucracy, sustain infrastructure investment, cover social services and health care costs and service past debts.

But the crisis of Japan's post-Cold War model is relatively mild. Despite two decades without growth, Japan is still the world's third-largest economy and maintains one of the highest GDPs per capita among major economies. Meanwhile, a consistently strong yen has meant rising purchasing power. Japan also has one of the world's highest research and development expenditure-to-GDP ratios and remains one of the world's most innovative high-tech economies.

Battered, Not Broken

Recognizing that the Lost Decades have not led to an earthshaking national crisis is key to forecasting the next step for Japan. The country will shift only if it is forced to do so. If not, the status quo will persist more or less intact, albeit fraying at the edges, for the foreseeable future.

Two factors undergird the stability of the current order: high living standards and a stable regional position. The Japanese government, first and foremost, needs to guarantee that quality of life remains steady or improves. Tokyo will need to keep Japan's GDP constant, or at least declining slow enough to dovetail with its population decline, over the next several decades. The government will also need to find a way to pay the costs associated with the country's growing elderly population. Both will mean improving worker productivity to offset a shrinking workforce while helping Japanese industries remain globally competitive and effectively taxing overseas economic activity. Extracting government revenue from Japanese businesses abroad, which have used offshoring to keep themselves globally competitive, will be possible with some political wrangling. It will also be a crucial move, since the government will need to bolster domestic spending. Social security and health care costs now account for over 35 percent of government expenditures. At the moment, however, only 26 percent of the population is over 65. By 2040, the elderly will make up 36 percent of the population. The government will likely manage this by exploiting its close ties with the leading keiretsu.

Tokyo will also push for incremental labor reforms and technological advances to improve worker productivity. To be politically viable, these reforms will need only to be gradual enough to avoid substantially increasing unemployment (currently just 3.4 percent) or underemployment in the near term. This will be tricky. For the next 5-10 years, Japan will see population aging and workforce shrinkage slow. Between 2015 and 2025, Japan's workforce will shrink by 5.5 million-5.6 million, down from its loss of 7.7 million-8.3 million workers between 2005 and 2015. Steadier population levels will raise the pressure on the government to maintain employment.

After 2025, and especially after 2045, extreme working age and overall population declines could force more fundamental changes in the structure of Japan's economy. By 2060, Japan's total population will fall by around 25 percent, while the working-age population will fall by around 50 percent. This will almost certainly have profound implications for the country's economy. Still, the population shifts will be gradual, and it will take some time before their full effects are felt. Without changes in Japan's external environment, the Japanese government could make incremental policy adjustments that address the impact of population decline on quality of life over the next three to five decades, at least enough to stave off a catastrophic change in the foundations of the current order.

Forecasting Japan: A Slow-Burning Crisis is republished with permission of Stratfor.

What, I'm Da Laws now!

A few weeks after I got off probation in February, 1999, I saw someone drive though a red light and I though, "I wish a cop had seen that....wait a cop did!" I smiled and it really hit me I'm the cop now.

As I was surfing PoliceOne today I found this and found it rather humorous. Enjoy.

13 times you knew you were a cop

By PoliceOne Staff

There are parts of the job that can’t be shaken off at the end of the day like your uniform. Here are 13 signs you’re an LEO — as written by our Facebook audience:

1. “You refer to your spouse as ‘watch commander.’" — Joseph Lordanich

2. “You immediately take up the ‘Weaver Stance’ when some huck walks up and asks for a smoke or a match.” — William Hawkins

3. “You feel the need to wash your hands after having to shake hands with someone.” — Victor Lewis

4. “When you find yourself telling your kids to ‘Signal 9’ and they reply with ‘10-4.’” — Michael Gardner Jr.

5. “Your signature develops a unreadable flair.” — Chris Kohnken

6. “You have to explain to your significant other you’re not checking out people’s butts — you’re looking at waistlines for a gun.” — Steven Wallace

7. “You answer your phone at home by saying, ‘Go ahead.’” — Ron Singh

8. “You reach for your spotlight in your personal car when you see a suspicious person or you try to use your key card when you're walking through the front door of your house." — Bryan Britten

9. “Your spouse sees their favorite restaurant, while you see the place where several dirtbags you recently arrested work and you’re afraid to eat there for fear of what they'll do to your food.” — Rachel Hansen

10. “You know every 24 hour coffee and fuel stop in the area.” — PSH

11. “People immediately remove their hands from their pockets when they see you.” — Doug Sterling

12. “Reading tags phonetically off duty in your head. Can't stop to save my life.” — Shane Tindall

13. “You drive off duty like you're going lights and sirens and make your wife carsick.” — Molly Anne

Security Weekly: Lessons From a Murder in Medellin, October 1, 2015

By Scott Stewart

On the evening of Friday, Sept. 25, American tourist John Mariani left his hotel in Medellin, Colombia, and jumped into a taxi. The 65-year-old New Yorker was staying at one of the many high-class hotels in Medellin's upscale El Poblado neighborhood. But shortly after leaving the hotel, the taxi picked up a tail and was followed by a car and a motorcycle. The drivers of the trailing vehicles reportedly forced the taxi to stop and confronted the driver and Mariani at gunpoint, demanding their wallets and personal belongings. When Mariani refused the gunmen's demands to relinquish his belongings, he was shot dead.

Mariani's tragic death provides a number of security lessons for other travelers.

Understanding the Threat

Colombia has come a long way from the wild days of the late 1980s and early 1990s, as has Medellin, which was once the dangerous headquarters of Pablo Escobar's powerful and brutal Medellin Cartel. Colombia and Medellin are far safer for foreigners to visit now, but crime remains a problem. Indeed, even though the government is making progress in its efforts to negotiate a peace settlement to end its decades-long communist insurgencies, "peace" in Colombia will not automatically result in security. Many of the current rank-and-file members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and National Liberation Army will likely join criminal bands known as Bacrim once they are demobilized. Understanding such dynamics — and how local criminals operate — is one of the most important steps in planning a safe trip abroad.

One place to find this kind of information is publications from the U.S. and foreign governments. For example, the U.S. Department of State's Consular Information Sheet for Colombia states the following in the crime section:

Violent and petty crime remains a significant concern in Colombia. Robbery and other violent crimes, as well as scams against unsuspecting tourists, are common in urban areas. Generally speaking, if you are the victim of a robbery, you should not resist. Firearms are prevalent in Colombia and altercations may turn violent.

This is exactly what happened in the Mariani case: His resistance to the criminals' demands led to a rapid escalation of violence and his death. Normally in Colombia, if you surrender your valuables, you will not be harmed; this is why the U.S. Embassy advises American citizens not to resist. Of course, the type of crimes common in a location will dictate how a traveler should respond to a given threat, so it is important to understand the threat.

Avoiding the Threat

In all circumstances, it is better to see a threat developing and take actions to avoid it than it is to be caught off guard by armed criminals. Because of this we recommend that people practice a proper level of situational awareness, especially when and where the security threat is elevated — for example, going out on the street after dark in Colombia.

It is also important to understand that street crimes, even those that appear to be random, are not. They follow a discernable planning cycle. Although this cycle will vary in duration depending on the type of crime — a purse snatching will likely require a much shorter cycle than a kidnapping for ransom — there are points during that planning cycle when the criminals planning the crime are vulnerable to detection. This is especially true while the criminals are "casing" or conducting surveillance on the potential victim during the target selection and planning phases of the cycle, and as they deploy for the attack. It is by detecting the preparatory activities of the criminal planning cycle that a victim practicing good situational awareness can spot a crime developing and take action to prevent the criminals from consummating their crime — such as dialing the police or turning and walking the other way to avoid the attack zone.

However, once a person has been caught off guard — especially by armed criminals — it is generally advisable to comply with the criminals' demands rather than resist. Armed criminals in many parts of the world will not hesitate to use brutal violence if they are challenged. The advice to comply is particularly applicable when the criminal's demands do not involve something life-threatening. Even in the case of a crime that may result in a significant financial loss, such as an express or traditional kidnapping, it is still better to be a live victim than a dead body. One of the rules of thumb I use in travel security briefings is that no possession is worth your life. But even then, it is better to simply not take important sentimental items with you when traveling to a crime-prone area, because such items could tempt you to hesitate to surrender them. In many parts of the world, a criminal will cut your engagement ring off your dead finger if you refuse or even hesitate to give it up.

Of course the equation is dramatically different in a situation where the criminal encounter is likely to be life-threatening, such as a kidnapping by criminals who could sell you to the Islamic State. In such instances, it is better to attempt to run, hide or fight than to comply.

The Trouble With Taxis

At this point we do not know if Mariani took a registered taxi or an unofficial, "black" taxi. However, by their very nature, taxis are a problem for travelers all around the world. Taxi drivers pose a number of threats, some of which are relatively benign, such as overcharging for a ride. Crimes like this can even occur in areas of the world considered safe. However, in some parts of the world, taxi drivers can pose a more dangerous threat, such as actively helping a criminal gang rob or kidnap — whether express or traditional — a traveler.

Taxi drivers, by nature, are in a position of power because they know where they are going and how much the ride should cost. One way to mitigate the driver's power is through preparation prior to the ride. This can be done by researching travel blogs, using a map, contacting a hotel or asking business associates and contacts in country. A traveler should also use only sanctioned taxis. Many cities will have designated taxi stands where a person can go to hail a taxi. A traveler can often get an estimated fare from this stand. Hotel and restaurant doormen will also usually be willing to hail a reliable taxi for customers. It is generally advisable to never hail a taxi from the street by yourself, especially in a high crime threat location such as Colombia.

In the end, Mariani's death is a tragic event but one that probably could have been avoided. Hopefully, this tragedy can serve as a lesson for other travelers.

Lessons From a Murder in Medellin is republished with permission of Stratfor.

Stupid things cops get told. And how we really want to answer them.

One of the greatest pleasures I've had in my professional career was giving a ticket to the wife of the lieutenant governor who was only driving 37 in a 20 (school zone) because she was going to a meeting to help some children. I know this because...she told me. Some people really don't understand that I don't care if you are a politician, a musician, a famous businessman (I've pulled over all). Just sign here and take it up with the judge.

Saw this on the web and has a few good responses. The non-italics are mine.

Stuff People Say to Cops and What We'd Like to Say in Response

As a longtime officer of the law, I came in contact with many individuals over my career. And during that time, I heard a lot of the same tired things over and over.

After a while, it becomes all the more difficult to filter your response from your contemplated response. Here were some of my favorites.

1) "Do you know who I am?" — stopped motorist

My Response:
"No sir, I’m sorry I don’t. Could I please get your license and registration so I can conduct the stop and get you moving again as quickly as possible?"

My Contemplated Response:
"Grab my radio and ask dispatch for an ambulance. We have an adult male suffering from some a case amnesia, as he doesn’t remember his own name."

No, should I expect you have a warrant?

2) "Don’t you have anything better to do? Why aren’t you out catching real criminals?"

My Response:
"Sir, sorry I have upset your day. If you could just bear with me for a minute, I’m sure we can sort all this out."

My Contemplated Response:
"Yes I do, but people like you keep wasting my time with actions that show a willful disregard for the law and the concerns of others."

No, I got nothing better to do right now than give you a ticket. It brings pleasure to my meaningless life.

3) "My tax dollars pay your salary."

My Response:
"Yes, sir I am aware of that. Thank you."

My Contemplated Response:
"Sir, I’m well aware of that. Thank You. Now let’s do some quick math. Let’s imagine you pay 4x more than the average tax paid in the city ($5,200 x 4 = $20,0800). Now divide that by the number of days in a year that the department is open (365). That means you pay 56.90 a day for our salaries.

Now sir, if you would consider that I have 2999 other co-workers, we need to divide 56.90 by 3000 employees. That means you contribute approximately 18 cents a day for my salary. We won’t even take into account that your taxes also go to support school, public works, fire, EMS, and a host of other city expenses.

I’m most grateful for your economic support. After we are done, if you’re not happy I would be happy to return your contribution to my daily wages. Do you have change for a quarter?"

I also pay taxes so as far as I'm concerned I'm self-employed.

4) "Will this help you fill your daily quota?"

My Response:
"Sorry sir, no one likes getting a ticket. You have 21 days to pay it or appeal it. The instructions are on the back."

My Contemplated Response: "No sir, I don’t have a quota. I am free to cite as many jerks like you as I want. Luckily there is no limit."

Not even close but ten more today and I get a free toaster.

5) "Why didn’t you pull over the guy who was in front of me? He was doing the same thing."

My Response:
"Sorry sir, I didn’t see him. I certainly would have if I had."

My Contemplated Response:
"Because sir, I want to give you my undivided attention free of any distractions to ensure we have a quality traffic stop together."

Well, I can only get one of you and it's your lucky day.

6) "Do you see that policeman over there? If you don’t start behaving, he’s going to take you to jail." — mother to misbehaving child

My Response:
"Ma’am, we only arrest bad guys."

My Contemplated Response:
"Thanks a lot ma’am. It’s a great idea to instill that type of fear in your child. That way he will fear and distrust police from an early age. If he’s ever lost or in trouble he will run from those who can help him. You need a license to drive a car, but anyone can have a child."

Excuse me lady, I'm not gonna arrest your kid because you can't discipline your child. You can't raise or feed them, please don't breed them.

7) "Sir, I only had two beers."

My Response:
"Just 2 beers? Sir, is there any medical condition I should be aware of that may be impacting your driving ability?"

My Contemplated Response:
"No you didn’t!!! Nobody in the history of recorded time has had just 2 beers."

Please specify "two beers". Two six packs, two pitchers, two kegs?

8) "You forgot to read me my rights. This case is going to be thrown out of court." — arrested suspect

My Response:
"Yes sir, the Miranda decision is a little complicated."

My Contemplated Response:
"Sir, you so thoroughly screwed up, providing us with so much evidence against you that there exists no need to get a statement from you. No one cares what you have to say. You need to stop watching TV."

Gotta ask, what year of law school are you in?

9) “Are you an undercover cop? You know you have to tell me if you are or the case gets thrown out?”

My Response:
"I’m not a cop. Are you?"

My Contemplated Response:
"Are you an idiot? Do you really think the law requires undercover cops to inform criminals that they are cops when they are working a case? What do you think, everyone who has gone to jail due to undercover operations simply forgot to ask this question?"

Where did you get your legal education, YouTube?

Any other good comments to add?