Has Obama’s Police Body Camera Policy Taken A Hit?

By William Teach December 4, 2014 – 7:14 am

Let’s start off with the Eric Garner case

(NY Post) A Staten Island grand jury cleared an NYPD cop in the chokehold death of Eric Garner during his caught-on-video arrest for peddling loose cigarettes, the Staten Island district attorney confirmed Wednesday.

The panel voted a “no-bill” and dismissed all potential charges against Officer Daniel Pantaleo.

The blockbuster decision capped weeks of investigation by the special grand jury, which was empaneled in September specifically to review evidence in Garner’s racially charged death.

A lot of people are trying to link this to the Ferguson case, but they couldn’t be more different. Garner may have been involved in a minor instance of breaking the law (peddling cigarettes), but, unlike Michael Brown, he didn’t just assault a store clerk, didn’t assault a police officer, didn’t try and take an officer’s gun, and didn’t charge the officer. Furthermore, Officer Darren Wilson, in the Ferguson incident, was alone. The police in Staten Island where there in force. To me, the video clearly shows the chokehold, and perhaps overzealous police officers. And possible criminal conduct.

But, Garner was also resisting arrest.

What we really do not have are the facts as presented to the Grand Jury, along with their reasoning for the “no-bill”. What about the use of body cameras for police

With Eric Garner, Obama’s body camera argument just took a big hit

President Obama announced this week that, in response to Ferguson and other cases of cops killing unarmed black men, the White House would call for $75 million to make 50,000 body cameras available to police departments across the country.

But on Wednesday, a grand jury declined to indict New York police officers in the choking death of Eric Garner — a case in which there was footage. And the timing couldn’t really be worse for the White House.

The Washington Post goes on to note

Proponents of expanding the use of body cameras point to Rialto, Calif., where complaints against police officers fell by 88 percent a year after they were put into use in 2012. And more than anything, the use of technology to prevent more Fergusons has been something plenty of people with very different views of what happened could agree upon.

So, they can actually be helpful (it should be noted that it wasn’t a body camera used in the Eric Garner case, just someone filming). The Atlantic’s Uri Friedman goes deeper into saying that the policy of body cameras might be a bad one

Barak Ariel, a criminologist at the University of Cambridge, isn’t so sure about body cameras, either.

The technology is “surely promising, but we don’t know that it’s working,” Ariel told me. The Food and Drug Administration doesn’t approve drugs until they’ve been studied extensively, he explained, and governments should take a similar approach with body-worn cameras. It’s a solution that has yet to be proven.

There’s lots more where that came from.

But, are the cameras worth the price-tag? In my opinion, heck yes. They surely won’t be perfect. Incidents will still happen. Let’s not forget that the Rodney King incident was filmed during the time of everyone getting their own video camera. The use of police car dash cams has reduced complaints against officers, has given police proof of their conduct during stops and other incidents, has shown the conduct of those stopped by police, and has also shown police engaged in illegal and/or over the line conduct. When the last happens, most police officers are held responsible.

Having body cameras is better than not having them. They cause police and citizens to generally act in a better manner. Not always. This is one Obama policy that Conservatives should get behind.

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North Carolina, 15 Other States Join Texas In Suing Obama Over Illegal Aliens Order

By William Teach December 4, 2014 – 6:50 am

Obama’s unlawful executive order telling the government to not enforce the law when it comes to illegal aliens in the U.S. has gotten him sued again

(WRAL/AP) North Carolina is part of a 17-state coalition suing over President Barack Obama’s recently announced executive actions on immigration, arguing in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that the move “tramples” key portions of the U.S. Constitution.

Many top Republicans have denounced Obama’s unilateral move, which was designed to spare as many as 5 million people living illegally in the United States from deportation.

But Texas Gov.-elect Greg Abbott took it a step further, filing a formal legal challenge in federal court in the Southern District of Texas. His state is joined by 16 other mostly conservative states, largely in the south and Midwest, such as Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana and the Carolinas.

The states aren’t seeking monetary damages, but instead want the courts to block Obama’s actions.

“The president has exceeded the balance of power provisions clearly laid out in the U.S. Constitution and his unilateral expansion of power must be challenged,” North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory said in a statement. “In North Carolina, the 10th most populous state, the president’s actions are likely to put even more financial strain on our state’s government services. It’s disappointing that the president has shown little regard for states which must shoulder the costs of his actions.”

And bear those costs the States will, unless the order is blocked. More on that in a moment

The lawsuit raises three objections: that Obama violated the “Take Care Clause” of the U.S. Constitution that Abbott said limits the scope of presidential power; that the federal government didn’t follow proper rule-making procedures; and that the order will “exacerbate the humanitarian crisis along the southern border, which will affect increased state investment in law enforcement, health care and education.”

Abbott said Obama’s actions “directly violate a fundamental promise to the American people” and that it was up to the president to “execute the law, not de facto make law.”

But, when has Obama ever cared about executing the law? Of course, the lawsuit has annoyed those who support illegal aliens

“Gov. McCrory continues to send a clear message that immigrants are unwelcome in North Carolina,” Angeline Echeverría, executive director of El Pueblo, said in a statement. “His blatant disregard for the positive contributions of North Carolina’s immigrant community is short-sighted and fails to recognize that this executive action will benefit community members who are already contributing to North Carolina’s economy, cultural diversity and civic life.”

Well, yes, if you are here in this country illegally, you are unwelcome. What are the positive contributions? Would they be the spike in violence at the schools the illegal kids have been placed in? Or the people, at least one of whom has an ICE detainer, who engaged in a high speed chase with a Wake County sheriff and shot at his cruiser? Or the illegal alien who kidnapped a Baltimore girl? Those are just a few of the hits of “positive contributions”.

Now, regarding costs, here’s something I never got around to posting from November 29th. The NY Daily News had been a massive cheerleader for Obama and progressive causes. But, even they have a problem with Obama’s lawless illegal alien “amnesty”, noting that there is a cost to good intentions (personally, I don’t think Obama had good intentions, just hard core political ones. He couldn’t give a crap about illegals personally.)

Obama defended his overhaul of U.S. immigration policy by declaring that he had gone beyond an exercise in executive power.

“What you’re not paying attention to is the fact that I just took an action to change the law,” the President told hecklers — who wanted him to go further than he already has in shielding 5 million people from the threat of deportation and issuing them work permits.

Even Obama acknowledged his own lawlessness.

In fact, his solo approach is about to hammer New York taxpayers. That’s because many of the immigrants affected by Obama’s executive order will also become eligible for Medicaid health coverage under state law.

Under a 2001 court ruling, New York must also offer Medicaid to immigrants with lawful status, regardless of whether federal aid is available or not — something most states don’t do.

New York has 250k- 300k illegals, all of whom the state will have to pay for. You know what? Tough sh*t. This is the fall out of progressive policies in NY, where there are enough Democrat voters to win elections, and then coddle illegal aliens. When other illegals realize this information about the state paying, they’ll stream further into the state. Hoist. Petard.

NY doesn’t want to be part of this suit. Let them, California, and other liberal states have the illegals. Let them deal with the crime and other costs.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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DHS Head Jeh Johnson Has A Bit Of A Problem Explaining How Amnesty Helps Americans

By William Teach December 3, 2014 – 3:06 pm

But, then, it isn’t meant to help Americans overall, just the Democrat Party

Of course,  Obama’s pick for ambassador to Hungary is also pretty darned pathetic.

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If All You See…

By William Teach December 3, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is an evil fire killing off trees and causing the Earth’s temperature to increase wildly sometime in the future, you might just be a Warmist

Yeah, this one might be a little more risque than normal, but, eh. The blog of the day is Victory Girls Blog, with a post noting that French jihadis aren’t finding jihad to be as fun as they thought.

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Oops: Japan Uses $1 Billion In Supposed UN Climate Change Funds To Build Coal Plants

By William Teach December 3, 2014 – 11:21 am

Interestingly, the most important part is not about how the money was used

(Newsweek) About $1 billion in Japanese funding that Japan claimed was part of a UN initiative to help developing countries take action against climate change went, unnoticed, towards Japanese companies for the construction of three coal-fired power plants, the Associated Press reported Monday.

Coal-burning power plants are the world’s biggest source of atmospheric CO2, a key driver of global warming.

Wait, I thought it was fossil fueled vehicles? Or agriculture? Or eating meat? I guess it depends on what the article author is pushing. Anyhow, here’s the main point

The slip-up highlights major gaps in oversight when it comes to funding climate projects in developing countries. The three power plant projects, built in Indonesia by Japanese companies, were listed as “climate finance.” But the U.N. has no formal definition of what constitutes legitimate climate finance, nor does it have a watchdog agency to ensure climate dollars end up in appropriate places.

In other words, nations are giving boatloads of taxpayer cash for “climate change”, and there is barely any way to track how the money is spent.

The funding came from a pot of money established by the U.N. in 2009, when wealthy nations pledged to accumulate $30 billion in climate finance over the following three years. At the time, Japan agreed to provide about half that sum. Meanwhile, the recently-established Green Climate Fund, which has similar goals to help poorer nations adapt to the warming climate, also has no watchdog agency or formal definition of climate finance, according to the AP. President Obama recently pledged $3 billion to the fund.

It’s a general slush fund for the U.N. to piss away however they see fit.

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Weather Is Totally Hotter And Weirder Because Of “Climate Change” Or Something

By William Teach December 3, 2014 – 8:29 am

Let’s review: “climate change” refers to anthropogenic global warming, a notion that Mankind is causing the Earth to become warmer through our output of greenhouse gases, mostly carbon dioxide. It was renamed “climate change” in order to cover ever single weather occurrence, including cold, snow, and ice. Furthermore, calling it “climate change” allows Warmists to link virtually everything to their pet cultish beliefs about “carbon pollution”. And we can always rely on AP writer Seth Borenstein to bring the crazy

Hotter, weirder: How climate has changed Earth

In the more than two decades since world leaders first got together to try to solve global warming, life on Earth has changed, not just the climate. It’s gotten hotter, more polluted with heat-trapping gases, more crowded and just downright wilder.

The numbers are stark. Carbon dioxide emissions: up 60 percent. Global temperature: up six-tenths of a degree. Population: up 1.7 billion people. Sea level: up 3 inches. U.S. extreme weather: up 30 percent. Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica: down 4.9 trillion tons of ice.

How cute. Most of the past two decades have been a time where the global temperature has risen in what is called a “statistically insignificant” way. It has not gone up 0.6 degrees (Borenstein doesn’t say whether Celsius or Fahrenheit). Sea levels did not rise 3 inches in 20 years (in fact, they only rose 7 inches during the 20th Century. One would expect at least double that during a Holocene warm period). Antarctica has been growing. Arctic sea ice has been growing over the past few years. The U.S. has seen some of the quietest years for tropical storms, tornadoes, and wildfires (technically, wildfires are not weather, but, Warmists have decided that it is for political purposes).

Oh, and none what Borenstein wrote proves anthropogenic causation.

“Simply put, we are rapidly remaking the planet and beginning to suffer the consequences,” says Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University.

Strange, because Mankind has always done better during warm periods, not cold periods. Of course, what this article and its complaints are about is the Conference On The Parties, the UN IPCC working vacation (often paid for by taxpayers) that takes place in Lima, Peru, where a handful of so-called climate scientists and a boatload of government bureaucrats and politicians gather together after long fossil fueled flights to complain about the use of fossil fuels.

“Overall, what really strikes me is the missed opportunity,” Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University, said in an email.

“We knew by the early 1990s that global warming was coming, yet we have done essentially nothing to head off the risk. I think that future generations may be justifiably angry about this.”

If only Warmists had led the way and given up their own use of fossil fuels, stopped using hair dryers, ice makers, air conditioning, heating, washers and dryers, refrigerators, fireplaces, cable boxes/DVRs, televisions….really, almost everything. It is interesting that the measures that Warmists push are the same as the push for everything else: more taxation, more government control of industry, businesses, and people.

“The numbers don’t lie,” said Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State. “Greenhouse gases are rising steadily and the cause is fossil fuel burning and other human activities. The globe is warming, ice is melting and our climate is changing as a result.”

Is this the same Michael Mann who falsely claims he is a Noble Prize winner, and refuses to appear in court? Anyhow, if CO2 is rising, and it is at fault, then why

Humph. Strange.

From Climate Depot

That’s right, Borenstein complains about population, as well. Interestingly, most Warmists are concerned about population in places like Africa. Since they casually link CO2 to warming, we can do the same in saying Warmists, who are primarily Leftists, hate Black people.

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Did IRS Illegally Share Taxpayer Data With White House?

By William Teach December 3, 2014 – 7:50 am

It sure appears that way, since the IRS is defying a court order to turn over documents. It also should come as no surprise that most media outlets have completely ignored this story

(Fox News) An IRS watchdog is acknowledging that thousands of documents related to requests between the White House and the tax agency for unauthorized tax information exist — but says it must withhold them all due to privacy concerns.

The revelation by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) came as part of a lawsuit filed by non-profit group Cause of Action, which began investigating whether the IRS was improperly sharing taxpayer information with the White House in 2012.

Cause of Action originally filed a Freedom of Information Act request asking the IRS to turn over any documents, if they existed, related to correspondence between the IRS and the White House about requests for tax returns for individuals or businesses.

When the IRS said it was unable to do so because of constraints in the Internal Revenue Code, the group filed the lawsuit. A judge ruled that the IRS must turn over any relevant documents to Cause of Action by Dec. 1 to comply with the FOIA request.

TIGTA has informed Cause Of Action that there are over 2000 relevant pages, but, they can’t turn them over because they contain….wait for it….taxpayer information.

Dan Epstein, a spokesman for Cause of Action, told FoxNews.com he believes that the IRS “essentially ignored the order of the court” with this declaration and that the group is considering the best path forward to force the IRS to disclose the documents.

However, Epstein said that the group feels that TIGTA’s acknowledgment of the documents is “absolutely” a victory in their investigation. He said the sheer number of relevant documents indicates that wrongdoing occurred on the part of both the IRS and the White House.

Of course, is anyone surprised that the heavily politicized IRS would act in this manner? The TIGTA can’t share the information about Illegally shared Taxpayer information, shared with the White House Illegally, because it would be Illegal. See how this Administration works now?

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Study: Liberal Brains Shut Down When They Hear Facts

By William Teach December 2, 2014 – 5:52 pm

Well, really, the study is more about teens

The Teen Brain “Shuts Down” When It Hears Mom’s Criticism

….

Here’s the main take-away: when listening to Moms’ criticism, and for a period afterwards, the teens’ brains showed more activity in areas involved in negative emotions (no surprise there), but they actually showed reduced activity in regions involved in emotional control and in taking other people’s point of view. This suggests, the researchers said, that in response to maternal criticism: “youth shut down social processing [and] possibly do not think about their parents’ mental states.” They add: “… the decrement in brain activity in regions involved in mentalizing or perspective taking could help to explain the high frequency of maladaptive conflict resolution in parent-adolescent dyads.”

In much the same way, Liberal brains block out any real world facts, speech, and writing that disagrees with their narrow world-view. They immediately resort to such tactics as personal attacks and deflections. Perhaps this is one of the reasons they utterly rely on talking points provided by their political masters.

The blocking out may also included symptoms that included rage.

This leads to, for instance, the ability of liberals to block out the notion that Michael Brown was a criminal who stole cheap cigars and assaulted the store owner, was a dumbass who walked in the middle of the street after just committing a crime, assaulted an officer of the law and tried to take his gun, then came back for more assault. These same liberals then decided that it is a great idea to celebrate the criminal by rioting, looting, and arson within their own community.

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If All You See…

By William Teach December 2, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is a horrid fire which causes climate change and kills bears, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is American Power, with a post noting that Ferguson is become a revolutionary tourist wonderland

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NY Times: Know What’s Awesome? Hydrogen Cars

By William Teach December 2, 2014 – 9:53 am

But, hey, some of you critics are just so shortsighted, says the Editorial Board, who probably haven’t given up their own use of fossil fuels for their vehicles

Hydrogen Cars, Coming Down the Pike

The once-distant promise of clean, affordable hydrogen-powered cars is starting to become a reality.

Several major automakers, including Toyota, Honda and Hyundai, have started or will soon start selling these cars, which will be more expensive than comparable gasoline models but a lot cheaper than they were just a few years ago.

Hey, this is a great opportunity for limo liberals to Show They Care. Of course, this is what the big power using folks at the Times care about

The broad adoption of hydrogen-powered cars, which emit only water and heat, could play an important role, along with electric vehicles, in lowering emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants responsible for climate change. Cars and other modes of transportation account for about 28 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, second only to power plants, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Yeah, you didn’t think I would care that much about the editorial without “climate change”, right? Of course, they ignore the fact that water vapor is the #1 greenhouse gas, and adding more water vapor to the atmosphere could actually have a big effect on warming. Stress could, because the studies really do not exist except as possible models. A lot would depend on where the vapor goes, whether it stays lower in the atmosphere and creates more of an urban heat island effect, or goes into the upper atmosphere and messes with the global trapping of heat.

Most hydrogen today is created from natural gas in a process that generates carbon dioxide. But scientists say fuel cells are still good for the environment, because making hydrogen produces far fewer emissions than burning fossil fuels. Hydrogen could be produced more cleanly by using alternative energy sources like solar and wind power to split water into hydrogen and oxygen atoms. And it can be generated from renewable sources like sewage and animal waste.

Sounds like wishful thinking. Perhaps far in the future. And they may well be minimizing the release of CO2 from the process of releasing hydrogen. One article notes

Then again, hydrogen isn’t always clean to produce. It’s expensive to pull hydrogen from water. Non-renewable sources of hydrogen, such as oil and natural gas, are much cheaper, but using them still puts a drain on our fossil fuels supplies. Ironically, the carbon dioxide released in the process of producing hydrogen from fossil fuels cancels out any benefits to the environment. Experts say hydrogen that escapes during the production process could erode the ozone layer even further and exacerbate global warming [source: PBS]. There are other problems as well: Scientists are still struggling with the challenge of how to store hydrogen. Because it has such a low energy density, hydrogen needs to be stored and transported under high pressure — which makes it bulky and impractical. The pressure issue compounds another issue with hydrogen energy; like gas, hydrogen is highly flammable, but unlike gas, it has no smell. Sensors must be used to detect a leak before hydrogen can combust. Another issue is the need to provide enough refueling stations to supply all the hydrogen-powered cars throughout the country. Are hydrogen fuel producers willing to put a hydrogen station on virtually every corner?

Huh. So also bad for the ozone.

But cost isn’t the only problem. There are just 13 hydrogen fueling stations in the United States today, according to the Department of Energy. Big investments will be needed, and some are on the drawing board. The state ofCalifornia, where many of the first fuel-cell cars will be sold, plans to spend up to $200 million to build 100 fueling stations in a decade. Countries likeJapan and Germany are also investing in refueling stations. And car companies like Toyota and Honda are providing loans to help their business partners build hydrogen stations.

In other words, they want Government to pony up. According to this source, there are more than 13, but still not even close to being able to make it viable. Oh, and then there’s the part about it being tough to transport, tough to store, and highly flammable. Say, remember what the Hindenburg was full of? Hydrogen. And you won’t be able to smell a leak.

Some critics of hydrogen cars say they remain expensive and impractical compared with electric vehicles, which can be plugged into the existing electricity system. But that is shortsighted. The real competition for hydrogen-powered and electric vehicles is the gas guzzler. There is little doubt that the world will need many transformative technologies to deal with climate change.

I’ll agree, we do need something transformative. I’ve said time and time again I’m not a big fan of fossil fuels, they are dirty to the environment, and I’m not talking about greenhouse gases. Hydrogen, though, has too many dangers, such as …. being highly flammable. When it comes to “climate change”, though, we also learn

To produce usable hydrogen, it has to be separated from water, biomass (plant and animal waste), coal, or natural gas. About 95 percent of the hydrogen used today is produced by a process called steam reforming — separating hydrogen atoms from carbon atoms in methane [source: National Renewable Energy Laboratory]. This process releases greenhouse gasses, which contributes to global warming.

The other production method, electrolysis, separates hydrogen from water. Electrolysis can be powered by renewable energy such as wind, hydropower and solar energy, so that it produces no emissions. The downside is that it’s expensive. For hydrogen to reach its full potential as an energy source, scientists need to figure out a way to produce it inexpensively from clean, renewable sources.

That’s not sounding too impressive, and what happens when they start using water for this, leaving less for drinking and stuff, much like they are using food to create ethanol?

On the plus side, hydrogen is much more prevalent than fossil fuels. And, it is certainly clearer for the actual environment. It also provides roughly double the efficiency of fossil fuels (which is, itself, much, much more efficient than ethanol).

There are certainly pros and cons, but, hey, according to the NY Times, if you fail to get 100% behind hydrogen power, you’re a stupid meany critic and shortsighted. They do not want debate and discourse, they want people to shut the hell up and get in line.

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Posted in AGW Idiocy, Energy, Global Warming | 18 Comments | Trackback URL
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