16 Pot Plants And A Pissed Off Ex Got This Guy Killed...

So first things first, the disclaimers. I'm the son of a police officer. I was a military police soldier in the US Army and I currently work in corrections as a zoo keeper.

Those things being said, my sympathy for law enforcement should go without saying. I think they should have every tool constitutionally available to them, and taxpayers should pay for it. I think they should be paid well. I personally think that their pensions are completely out of control, but that's just me. (C'mon, nobody deserves 90% of their pay at 25 or 30 years, NO ONE.)

Now, here's what got my engine running for this post.

There was a drug raid. The cops busted into this dude's house. Between him and the cops somewhere between 130 and 250 bullets were fired.

One cop got killed.

Five cops got wounded.

And Matthew Stewart (the suspect) died as well. He killed himself. The media calls him Matthew David Stewart which to me is just their way of equating him with a serial killer. I swear you only get a middle name if you've killed at least two people.

It's kind of ridiculous that all that blood had to be shed over a few marijuana plants and a pissed off ex-girlfriend.

Not a whole lot of this convoluted story is particularly clear. What is clear is that these cops decided that the best way to blow this whole case wide open was to raid this guy's house, with guns drawn.

Now I'll tell you one thing for absolute fucking certain. If you know a guy is an former Army paratrooper. I would think twice about how you are going to go about arresting him. You walk into the home of a combat veteran (not sure if this guy was or not) and you pull out a gun, I would certainly expect a swift and violent response.

Just saying.

But that's what they did. They could've waited for him to go to the Redbox. They could've got him when he stepped out to go to BK. They could've grabbed him when he came out to get the newspaper. Or any of the million other random reasons I'm sure this guy came out of his house for every day.

Sometimes I wonder. Because throughout my entire life working in the military as a combat soldier or in a police capacity the one thing that was always right in the front of my head at any given moment was the safety of my soldiers and my safety.

I remember a time when violence and battle appealed to me. It was right before I encountered my first truly violent experience.

I don't know what kind of people are becoming cops nowadays but it seems (I could be wrong) that they are more and more militaristic and they are looking at the public with more and more of a military friendly vs. enemy frame of mind. They all wear bullet proof body armor, which in Chicago I can understand but the suburban and the rural guys are doing it too. They've all got M-4's which sorry folks is a military assault rifle designed to...get this...assault people. It is a weapon of death. That's all its for. Killing people.

Whatever your opinion of this case is, its not really the point. The point is that no cogent argument can be made that this guy posed any threat to society other than to buy the 7-11's out of peanut butter cups. He was a pot head, and he pissed off his ex-girlfriend.

Instead of choosing a low risk method of arrest, the police chose to bulldoze their way into his house. I'm sorry but you break down somebody's door waving guns around you had better be ready for some action Jack!

It's a tragedy that 16 pot plants and a vindictive ex caused all this bloodshed.

And why didn't the police at least do their due diligence and check all this shit out ahead of time?

This is the kind of thing that soldiers do. In foreign lands. In defense of this nation.

This is not the kind of thing that cops should be doing in fucking Utah...

Will there be times when cops would need to do things like this? Absolutely. However, it should be extremely rare and it should be done by the specially trained units that every police department including Mayberry seems to have nowadays.

It should obviously not be done by The Weber-Morgan Narcotics Strike Force.

With a name like that, could you expect anything less?

We've Got a Deal...

Thankfully, it only took a damn near apocalyptic event to motivate congress to get its collective shit together and pass a bill to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling for...a couple months.

Good call Congress. Everyone have a beer and start talking about how your side won.

You're still a bunch of ineffectual squabbling children not worthy of the air and food it takes to keep you alive, much less the huge salaries you are paid from constitutionally protected funds.

I've never been able to figure out why you can be such a bunch of idiots. The only thing I've been able to come up with is the fact that you don't live in the same world as the rest of us.

We all live in a world where bills actually come due. We all live in a world where sooner or later your ability to borrow runs out. We all live in a world where we work. We compromise, We think, We worry, but most importantly we WORK.

We have to. Somebody has to pay your ridiculous salary. I still can't believe as a country we allow you fucks to vote on your own pay rates and raises. But you see that's why you exist. Because your average citizen doesn't have time for all this political nonsense. They are too busy living their lives and trying to keep the roof over their head and food in their bellies.

Now, we have to find a way to fix you. Throwing you all out. While certainly enjoyable this won't solve anything because another crop of assholes just like you will rise up to take your place. I do wholeheartedly believe that to be a politician, first one must be an asshole.

So how do we force you to live in the real world. How do we convince you that your actions actually have consequences in real life. Not your lovely, sheltered existence in Washington.

Thankfully, there is at least a framework for us to bring you back to earth, at least the same earth that the rest of us inhabit.

That being said, I know that the following is a chain letter and will probably by my very promulgation of it will destroy any credibility that I've got. Think about what it says...there are some holes, and there are some arguments to be made to change it. But imagine the difference if all these cocksuckers could only hope to leave a legacy of good done, as opposed to a seat or job or speaker-ship protected...its a helluva thought.

Anyway, here goes. I wonder if the country is capable of actually amending the constitution without destroying itself? Before you answer, remember we damn near sent the world into economic Armageddon over a few lines in a healthcare law...

Congressional Reform Act of 2011

1. TERM LIMITS
12 years only, one of the possible options below.

A. Two Six-year Senate terms
B. Six Two-year House terms
C. One Six-year Senate term and three Two-Year House terms

2. NO TENURE/NO PENSION
A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.

3. CONGRESS (past, present & future) PARTICIPATES in SOCIAL SECURITY
All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system and Congress participates with the American people.

4. CONGRESS CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN RETIREMENT PLAN
Just like each and every other American.

5. CONGRESS WILL NO LONGER VOTE THEMSELVES a PAY RAISE
Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 2.5%.

6. CONGRESS LOSES THEIR CURRENT HEALTH CARE SYSTEM
Congress will participate in the same health care system as the American people.

7. CONGRESS MUST EQUALLY ABIDE by ALL LAWS
No special exemptions or treatment.

8. ALL CONTRACTS WITH PAST AND PRESENT CONGRESSMEN ARE VOID
Effective 1/1/12.

Read more Here

It's all horseshit, but I can dream...can't I?

An Open Letter To Congress...

I am an excepted employee.

I just finished up day 10 of working for IOU’s.

I am an excepted employee. Meaning regardless of the shutdown I’m required to work.

The cable bill is due, the phone bill, the water bill, the gas bill, the car note, and not long after all of that comes the mortgage for my simple house in the suburbs.

Mr. or Mrs. Congressperson, your money comes from a separate pool of funds. This is convenient for you, but a few of you decided to donate your salaries to charity or not take them till the shutdown was over. Sorry, empty gesture. You’re mostly rich anyway, your congressional salaries probably aren’t your primary source of income, I’m sure you can wrangle a loan or two from your boys down on K street.

Let me tell you a bit about who an excepted employee is.

He works every day. He doesn’t get paid until congress decides he does.

He’s a guy who works in a federal prison, as a correctional officer, keeping society’s best and brightest away from all you respectable people out there.

He’s a guy who goes to the VA once a week to talk through the nightmares that won’t let him sleep more than three hours at a stretch, and for that the VA judged him disabled so they are nice enough to send him a check once a month for his troubles, but only if you allow it.

He’s a guy who spent 14 years in the US Army, and would really like to get his GI Bill payment come the end of the month.

Unfortunately for this guy, his entire income is derived from the US government. I dare anyone to claim he didn’t earn every penny.

He dares any member of congress to do the things he does, or do the things he has done for this country.

He was shot at, blown up, rocketed, mortared, slept in a hole, didn’t shower for days at a time, and a million other smaller indignities that aren’t worth mentioning.

He came home from fighting for his country and got a job working in a prison, containing the people who broke the laws that you made. This job has shown him the depths of evil. It has beaten him, its punched him, kicked him, it’s made him work while tear gas hangs heavy in the air, and he’s been spit on, berated, and subjected to every form of abuse under the sun. All for less than a quarter of what you make while you come up with new laws to fill those prisons from overflowing to bursting at the seams.

Many of these things he has done for the country that he swore to defend before he could legally buy a beer. He has done these things willingly and gladly. Any day spent serving this nation, whether in the uniform of a soldier or a correctional officer is a day well spent as far as he’s concerned.

But his next check isn't going to come. Well, only half of it is coming. Then after that no one knows when the next one will come. You shut down the government, but the world keeps on turning. The bills will come due, whether the government is open or not.

He’s heard people call him, an “overpaid government employee”. He wonders what a congressperson or civilian would expect to be paid for the things that he’s done and seen.

He’s even heard congress people say that they stand with federal employees…to which he can only say, "Yeah, you’re here with us, except you’re getting paid, your lives aren't disrupted, you don’t have to wonder how you’re going to make the mortgage, how you’re going to feed your kids, how you’re going to keep the heat on this winter, how you’re going to buy Christmas presents." He’s sure you've got mortgages, and kids in college and bills to pay too, but he wonders how you can justify paying yourselves when a continuation of this means he has to sell his house?

All except for that, you’re here with us.

I guess that’s what “excepted” means.

It means that you’re the excepted employee, because no one is getting paid, EXCEPT YOU.

You are the excepted employee.

Government Furlough = Free Vacation

Now ladies and gentlemen your government came up with its latest bag of dicks in relation to the shutdown.

Government will pay furloughed employees.

Now, the shutdown is simply because Republicans are throwing a temper tantrum about Obamacare. They can't actually defeat the law in open debate in congress so they'll force a shutdown.

Which in the long run will be fine with me, since after this shutdown is over the majority will blame the republicans and they will slip further into irrelevance. Now all we have to do is wait for them to lose a few more house seats and sooner or later the gerrymandering will come up and the democrats will basically run their asses off the map and we won't have to worry about tea bagging fucktards anymore...well maybe a district or two in Wyoming but until the human population outnumbers the cattle they won't be of any real consequence.

But back to what I was originally here to comment on. Paying furloughed employees.

ARE THEY FUCKING SERIOUS?

Supposedly, there are 800,000 government workers who are furloughed. That means they are not working, nor are they getting paid. Until this bill passed with basically universal support in congress and I believe that the president has said he will sign it.

Operative words in the furloughed employee explanation, NOT WORKING.

So they are going to get paid for work they don't do? Who the fuck thinks this is a good idea?

We've got a government who has basically borrowed every spare penny on the planet at one time or another and everyone is always bitching about how cuts need to be made and money needs to be saved and yada yada...and then they go ahead and pay 800,000 people for doing nothing!

These workers are going to get paid for sitting at home while the inept congress figures out how to pull its head out of its ass long enough to pass an appropriations bill.

Sorry, that's not fair. Its not fair to the American people who are paying their (our) salaries. Yes I am a government employee but I'm not furloughed. And yes, I am totally jealous. And its certainly not fair to the federal employees who are working through the furlough.

They are literally getting something for nothing. Which is about the most un-American thing in history.

Better solution, if at the end of the shutdown, employees who were furloughed decide they would like to take leave (vacation or sick or comp or whatever) to cover the lost furlough days and be paid for them that is fine, or they should come up with furlough premium. We get paid 10% extra for working at night, and 25% extra for working on Sundays. I think working for IOU's is worth a little bump, don't you?

If they choose not to take leave for those furlough days, well then fuck you. The federal workforce is like 2.1 million or something like that. That means that there are 1.3 million federal workers who are deemed "essential" or "excepted" and they've gotta work. Why on earth would anyone consider it "good business" to pay someone for work they didn't do?

And we wonder why we're 18 trillion in the hole.

Remember this shit America. Remember the obnoxiousness of shutting down the government over them not getting their way (toddler anyone) Remember that they paid 800,000 people for doing nothing. I hope that each and everyone of you feels this in one way or another so maybe when those next elections come around you actually pay attention.

My advice:

1. FIND OUT WHO THE INCUMBENT IS
2. VOTE FOR THE OTHER GUY
3. IF THERE IS NO CHALLENGER (THIS HAPPENS A LOT IN ILLINOIS)
4. VOTE FOR "PETER GRIFFIN"
5. REPEAT EVERY ELECTION UNTIL NO ONE HAS SERVED MULTIPLE TERMS

And remember, maybe if we actually pay attention and do what we are supposed to do then we can change Mr. Carlin's opinion of us...