Power corrupts #2

There so many instances of police abusing power imbalance that to post about every instance would practically be a full time job... but two recent reports (here and here) really make you wonder who is the criminal. Cops are human; that some are bad is not surprising or unexpected. What's disappointing is good cops overlooking the bad behavior. Bad cops force good cops into a catch-22: treat the bad cops as the criminals they are (arrest and charge them with crimes) or avert their gaze when a colleague in a blue uniform does something illegal. Unfortunately for many people, preserving police culture is a higher priority for most police.

Update:... just hours later... see here for another case.

How do you get around that...

It would appear Ted Cruz wants to president of the United States... the problem is he was born in Canada, which, as it happens, is not part of the United States. So how will he work around the pesky little problem of Article 2, Section 5 of the Constitution which states:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

He is by definition not a natural born citizen at the tender age of 44, not "...a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution..." It doesn't take a fancy law degree to wig out that little nugget.

Update: According to a report at NPR, Ted Cruz is a 'natural born citizen'. His mother was an American citizen at the time of his birth. 'Natural born Citizen' has never been define by the Supreme Court but there seems to include (1) birth on U.S. soil and (2) born to U.S. citizen parent(s) - essentially citizen conferred in utero.

Trust again, this time police

Most of us would like to think that the police persons are trustworthy and restrict their actions to within the confines of the law and they would not lie under oath! But two recent reports of lying by police bring this into doubt... police in Brooklyn lied about being assaulted by a teenager
and a case of both police and prosecutors lied about witnessing a man assaulting a police officer. It makes me wonder...

-Are police are trained to lie? And further, does their training correspond to the demands of their job?
-How often do police lie and under what circumstances - personal, professional, under oath, white lies? How does this compare to the general population?

With police misconduct high on the public radar, this is the time to discover, reflect and reform if needed.

Not pot, not kettle

I just came across a transcript of Bill O'Reilly implying that Christiane Amanpour's critique of Benjamin Netanyahu's recent speech to Congress is not worthy of 'trust' (after all she 'was raised in Iran until age 11'). When it comes to the issues of journalistic integrity and trustworthiness, Bill O'Reilly could not have chosen a worst time to raise these questions. Considering his less than truthful recounting of his reporting career highlights (see here, here, and here), he's not the pot calling Amanpour's kettle black... that would equate the quality of his work to hers. He's the bits of blacken cooked on debris flaking off the pot calling the kettle black. It's a wonder that his audience is so blind to his Forest Gump tendency to insert his manufactured personality into the historically relevant moments.  Forest Gump is a positive force that Bill O'Reilly could only aspire too.

Power corrupts #1

I will occasionally post links to articles which exemplify the how various forms of corruption manifests in public life. I make no assertion in any of these posts that the extent of corruption is absolute, only it exists...

Racial bias in many American police departments and judicial systems can lead to corrupt practices...
Darren Wilson and Daniel Pantaleo Weren't the First: A Short History of Brutal Cops Let Off the Hook by the US Justice System.

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"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

And this is unexpected?

So a “sovereign citizen” with the legal right to own and possibly openly carry firearms was due in court on drug and weapons charges. Feeling threatened [“His emotional state was very fragile. He was very sensitive, very, very, scared. He has no prior criminal history. He was obsessed with not going to jail,” said Marx’s former attorney Ann Shafer.] he decided to exercise the Castle doctrine of his state to carry his personal enactment of the Bush Doctrine. So now a courthouse deputy has been shot and he was killed by the police…

Not to worry, the NRA will soon offer a solution to excessively armed public... more arms for all!

Gun rights for me, not thee…

A man was free to stalk a children’s baseball game in Georgia. Apparently he was not doing anything explicitly illegal.

One of the parents present who called 911 is a gun rights advocate. She had this to say:

"I own a gun. I have no problems with the Second Amendment. But they do not belong in a parking lot where we have children everywhere. If you want to make a statement, go to the Capitol."

NIMBY meets the Second amendement.