Political Thread: What are your top 3 issues?

AdGator02 · Post by **AdGator02** » Thu May 29, 2008 2:10 pm

I would like to revise my choice of issues. My number one issue is now the wardrobe choices of celebs appearing in Dunkin Donuts commercials and whether their clothing is sufficiently politically correct.

I'm a serious thinker like that.
to hell w/ her scarf, you would think that a "chef" wouldn't do a advertisement for Dunkin Donuts of all places. That should be the biggest concern for her decency and credibility right there.

she's NOT a chef (no training), she's a marketing tool only.

DocZaius · Post by **DocZaius** » Thu May 29, 2008 2:19 pm

she's NOT a chef (no training), she's a marketing tool only.

I'll put up with a lot of shit in this thread, but I will NOT have you besmirch the honor of that young lady. She is the light of hope and goodness for all the cooking world.

[img]http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/6637 ... raygk3.jpg[/img]

[img]http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/3654 ... rayyk9.jpg[/img]

[img]http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/9643 ... 500hd6.png[/img]

[img]http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/8422 ... raysi0.jpg[/img]

[img]http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/5246 ... rrybr8.jpg[/img]

urapnes · Post by **urapnes** » Thu May 29, 2008 2:22 pm

i love me some rachael ray before she was this big in teh media.

i was going to say what addy said about her. she's no chef. a chef is the boss, the honcho, the guy that runs the kitchen. she's a cook and not that good at it.

G8rMom7 · Post by **G8rMom7** » Thu May 29, 2008 2:30 pm

Sorry...but I've gotten some good ideas from her 30 minute meals...plus, I love that her catch phrases make my husband nuts! I love to just call my sandwich a "delish sammy" and then say "yummo" after I take a bite. It makes him cringe!!! [img]{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_lol.gif[/img]

Weegie · Post by **Weegie** » Thu May 29, 2008 2:36 pm

I've never understood why so many people hate her so much. She's never claimed to be a chef; that doesn't mean she makes bad food or doesn't have good ideas. That said, I don't watch her show because I can't stand her voice. Same goes for the Diner/Drive-Ins guy.

AdGator02 · Post by **AdGator02** » Thu May 29, 2008 2:53 pm

she's annoying and her cookbooks are crappy.

doc, there's more airbrushing there than spring break at daytona beach in the 80s.

TTBHG · Post by **TTBHG** » Thu May 29, 2008 3:00 pm

Doc is the man.

Urap, how do you know she is not a good cook? Have you tried food she has prepared?

MinGator · Post by **MinGator** » Thu May 29, 2008 4:33 pm

Also, on the "War on Drugs" front, if we weren't so aggressive about it, there would be fewer situations like this:

Imagine you're home alone.

It's 8 p.m. You work an early shift and need to be out the door before sunrise, so you're already in bed. Your nerves are a bit frazzled, because earlier in the week someone broke into your home. Oddly, they didn't take anything; they just rifled through your belongings.

But the violation weighs on your mind. At about the time you drift off, you're awakened by fierce barking from your two large dogs. You hear someone crashing into your front door, as if he's trying to separate it from its hinges. You grab the gun you keep for home defense and leave your room to investigate.

This past January that scenario played out at the Chesapeake, Va., home of 28-year-old Ryan Frederick, a slight man of little more than 100 pounds. According to interviews since the incident, Frederick says when he looked toward his front door, he saw an intruder trying to enter through one of the lower door panels. So Frederick fired his gun.

The intruders were from the Chesapeake Police Department. They had come to serve a drug warrant. Frederick's bullet struck Detective Jarrod Shivers in the side, killing him. Frederick was arrested and has spent the last six weeks in a Chesapeake jail.

He has been charged with first degree murder. Paul Ebert, the special prosecutor assigned to the case, has indicated he may elevate the charge to capital murder, which would enable the state to seek the death penalty.

At the time of the raid, Ryan Frederick worked for a soft drink merchandiser. Current and former employers and co-workers speak highly of him. He also recently had gotten engaged, a welcome lift for a guy who'd had a run of tough luck.

He lost both parents early in life, and friends say the death of his mother hit particularly hard — Frederick discovered her in bed after she had overdosed on prescription medication.

Friends and neighbors describe Frederick as shy, self-effacing, non-confrontational and hard-working. He had no prior criminal record. Frederick and his friends have conceded he smoked marijuana recreationally. But all — including his neighbors — insist there's no evidence he was growing or distributing the drug.

According to the search warrant, the police raided Frederick's home after a confidential informant told them he saw evidence of marijuana growing in a garage behind the home. The warrant says the informant saw several marijuana plants, plus lights, irrigation equipment and other gardening supplies.

After the raid, the police found the gardening supplies, but no plants. They also found a small amount of marijuana, but not much — only enough to charge Frederick with misdemeanor drug possession.

Frederick told a local television station that he was an avid gardener. A neighbor I spoke with backs him up, explaining that Frederick had an elaborate koi pond behind his home and raised a variety of tropical plants. He'd even given his neighbors gardening tips on occasion.

One of the plants Frederick told the local television station he raised was the Japanese maple, a plant that, when green, has leaves that look quite a bit like marijuana leaves.

So far, Chesapeake police have given no indication that they did any investigation to corroborate the tip from their informant. There's no mention in the search warrant of an undercover drug buy from Frederick or of any extensive surveillance of Frederick's home.

More disturbingly, the search warrant says the confidential informant was inside Frederick's house three days before the raid — about the same time Frederick says someone broke into his home. Frederick's supporters have told me that Frederick and his attorney now know the identity of the informant, and that it was the police informant who broke into Frederick's home.

Chesapeake's police department isn't commenting. But if true, all of this raises some very troubling questions about the raid, and about Frederick's continued incarceration.

Chesapeake's lawyer, Paul Ebert, said at a recent bond hearing for Frederick that Shivers, the detective who was killed, was in Frederick's yard when he was shot, and that Frederick fired through his door, knowing he was firing at police.

Frederick's attorney disputes this. Ebert also said Frederick should have known the intruders were police because there were a dozen or more officers at the scene. But some of Frederick's neighbors dispute this, too. One neighbor told me she saw only two officers immediately after the raid; she said the others showed up only after Shivers went down.

What's clear, though, is that Chesepeake police conducted a raid on a man with no prior criminal record. Even if their informant had been correct, Frederick was at worst suspected of growing marijuana plants in his garage. There was no indication he was a violent man — that it was necessary to take down his door after nightfall.

The raid in Chesapeake bears a striking resemblance to another that ended in a fatality. Last week, New Hanover County, N.C., agreed to pay $4.25 million to the parents of college student Peyton Stickland, who was killed when a deputy participating in a raid mistook the sound of a SWAT battering ram for a gunshot and fired through the door as Strickland came to answer it.

So in the raid where a citizen mistakenly shot a police officer, the citizen is facing a murder charge; in the raid where a police officer shot a citizen, prosecutors declined to press charges.

Over the last quarter century, we've seen an astonishing rise in paramilitary police tactics by police departments across America. Peter Kraksa, professor of criminology at the University of Eastern kenSUCKY, ran a 20-year survey of SWAT team deployments and determined that they have increased 1,500 percent since the early 1980s — mostly to serve nonviolent drug warrants.

This is dangerous, senseless overkill. The margin of error is too thin, and the potential for tragedy too high to use these tactics unless they are in response to an already violent situation (think bank robberies, school shootings or hostage-takings). Breaking down doors to bust drug offenders creates violent situations; it doesn't defuse them.

Shivers' death is only the most recent example. And Ryan Frederick is merely the latest citizen to be put in the impossible position of being awakened from sleep, then having to determine in a matter of seconds if the men breaking into his home are police or criminal intruders.

How many people can honestly say they'd have handled it any differently than he did?

for those that don't know, Chesapeake is the neighboring city to virginia beach. i clearly remember the night that this happened as all the news stations jumped on the fallen officer in the line of duty with a wife and kids etc. and while that is sad for his wife and kids the more that came out makes me think this Det. Shivers was being awfully aggressive in serving a warrant for suspected pot growing. would have been simple enough to watch the place for a while to see if there was any corroborating evidence like drug sales etc. hell just check his electric bill. serious grow lights use a LOT of electricity. the cops claim they made a loud announcement that it was law enforcement at the door but his neighbors all have said they didn't hear a thing until the gun shots. (knowing the area the houses are not that far apart). So far this kid is getting railroaded for killing a cop that was breaking down his front door and to me it stinks, stinks to high heaven.

DocZaius · Post by **DocZaius** » Thu May 29, 2008 5:01 pm

^^^ And it happens with disturbing frequency. Police in Atlanta had the wrong address when they shot and killed Kathryn Johnston, a 92-year-old grandmother who fired a shot into her ceiling after she heard the police break down her door on a no-knock warrant.

Reason.com reports that it wasn't the first time the Atlanta PD got the wrong house:

Two months and a day before Kathryn Johnston, there was Frances Thompson.

The 80-year-old Thompson was in her bedroom the afternoon of Sept. 20, when she heard a terrible crash and shouting. Startled and confused, she grabbed a pistol and was immediately confronted by three Atlanta narcotics officers.

"They had masks covering their face. I thought I was being robbed," she recalled. "They pointed those big guns at me."

Lead officer Gary Smith said repeatedly "Police! Drop the Gun!" from behind his raid shield, according to a police report. Thompson, who had pointed the gun at the intruders, put down the black revolver as officers searched her apartment for a drug dealer named "Hollywood."

No one else was home. No drugs were found. And her pistol was a toy cap gun.

[...]

The two incidents share striking similarities: Two elderly women living alone with guns; police battering in a door; faulty reports from street-level dealers helping narcotics officers; and police parsing the truth, if not outright lying.

I love cops, and as a prosecutor, I defended police on many issues related to the execution of search warrants, but I have to question just exactly what the hell we're doing.

The CATO Institute, a libertarian think-tank, has compiled an interactive map of "botched paramilitary police raids" here.

DocZaius · Post by **DocZaius** » Thu May 29, 2008 5:19 pm

See also, Cory Maye.

annarborgator · Post by **annarborgator** » Thu May 29, 2008 7:28 pm

You know, I typed out a vitriol filled post about the bacon discussed above and their cohorts across the country, but I'm not even going to say what I was thinking. Y'all would probably think I'm insane. Sorry for anyone who has cops in their family, but I'll be honest, I fucking hate cops. The only other think I'll say is pigs who act like cowboys for no good reason sometimes end up shot like the old west. I don't have much sympathy. Yes, I'm a TOTAL asshole about this subject. About 73% of the time, cops are the scum of the earth, IMO.

The use of force on non-violent drug offenders, IMO, is the definition of cruel and unusual punishment. There are way too many fucking cops who love to hurt and or kill people they classify as "criminal" based on totally bogus "evidence". Who knows, I might have the same mindset as them if I was in their situation, but that's why we live in a nation of laws. Or so I thought.

annarborgator · Post by **annarborgator** » Thu May 29, 2008 7:48 pm

[img]{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_lmao.gif[/img] Just read that post...just wanna say that the other 27% of the time, cops can actually be helpful and at times necessary.

urapnes · Post by **urapnes** » Thu May 29, 2008 10:14 pm

Doc is the man.

Urap, how do you know she is not a good cook? Have you tried food she has prepared?

she doesn't create meals or dishes, she prepares pre-prepared food. i don't doubt the food she prepares taste good, but then again, it hink a quarter pounder with cheese tastes good and i wouldn't call whoever slaps that thing together a cook.

DocZaius · Post by **DocZaius** » Thu May 29, 2008 10:26 pm

she prepares pre-prepared food.

My head asplode.

[img]http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/8828/i ... ionhj9.jpg[/img]

AdGator02 · Post by **AdGator02** » Fri May 30, 2008 8:05 am

getting political again...

i want to hear from the thumbnail-size government and those who want minimal (no?) taxes.

i agree that the government wastes money, but that it always will, as has been stated. however, when i think of the role of government, included in there is to protect its citizens. not just from dumbasses who carry bombs and blindly hate america, but also from faulty workmanship, lethal toys, contaminated food, etc. i'm a fan of the epa, fda, faa, doc, dot, etc. and want them to be funded, not so they can buy gold toliets, but so they can protect us.

for example, i did research last summer for school on our food supply. what i found is sickening. this is when you couldn't turn on the news without hearing about pets dying and bans on seafood due to harmful chemicals. the scary part is that the fda doesn't have the resources to monitor more than a quarter of our food.

so, yes, the government needs to spend wisely, but we have regulatory bodies and other vital departments that need funding from our taxes. i am fine with that.

IHateUGAlyDawgs · Post by **IHateUGAlyDawgs** » Fri May 30, 2008 8:19 am

getting political again...

i want to hear from the thumbnail-size government and those who want minimal (no?) taxes.

i agree that the government wastes money, but that it always will, as has been stated. however, when i think of the role of government, included in there is to protect its citizens. not just from dumbasses who carry bombs and blindly hate america, but also from faulty workmanship, lethal toys, contaminated food, etc. i'm a fan of the epa, fda, faa, doc, dot, etc. and want them to be funded, not so they can buy gold toliets, but so they can protect us.

for example, i did research last summer for school on our food supply. what i found is sickening. this is when you couldn't turn on the news without hearing about pets dying and bans on seafood due to harmful chemicals. the scary part is that the fda doesn't have the resources to monitor more than a quarter of our food.

so, yes, the government needs to spend wisely, but we have regulatory bodies and other vital departments that need funding from our taxes. i am fine with that.

we could do all that just fine if we'd quit spending money on completely unneccessary crap. also, a lot of the government agencies you mentioned get a lot of additional funding for useless shit as well that could be cut back and some programs should just be altogether eliminated (i.e. Social Security)

annarborgator · Post by **annarborgator** » Fri May 30, 2008 8:32 am

Just as a quick example, the Federal Dept. of Education spent 66,392,000,000 in 2007. (Total outlays at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy ... ation.html ) Yes, 66 billion dollars is probably a drop in the bucket compared to our Federal budget, but the FDOE is basically just an unnecessary bureauracracy, IMO. Education should be a state thing. I don't see why that much Federal money goes to it.

I also think the big three entitlement programs--Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid--are massive holes we just throw money down, mostly because of institutional inertia. We spend about $1 trillion on those three programs alone...right around HALF of the federal budget. Social security retirement benefits, in particular, aren't why we created the federal government, IMO.

I agree that there are parts of the economy that deserve to be regulated at the federal level, namely the energy sector, our food, the environment, the interstate highways/railways and our drug supply.

AdGator02 · Post by **AdGator02** » Fri May 30, 2008 8:46 am

ok, cool. thanks for the clarification. i checked out the fdoe budget, and aside from the programs where i'd need to research what they actually do, a lot of $ go toward grants. i'm ok with people getting grants. do you know how dirt poor you need to be to get those grants? more power to those people for trying to get a college education. in the end, an educated person will provide more to society than an ignorant one. the government will make the money back in tax revenue later (theoretically).

TTBHG · Post by **TTBHG** » Fri May 30, 2008 8:51 am

You know, I typed out a vitriol filled post about the bacon discussed above and their cohorts across the country, but I'm not even going to say what I was thinking. Y'all would probably think I'm insane. Sorry for anyone who has cops in their family, but I'll be honest, I fucking hate cops. The only other think I'll say is pigs who act like cowboys for no good reason sometimes end up shot like the old west. I don't have much sympathy. Yes, I'm a TOTAL asshole about this subject. About 73% of the time, cops are the scum of the earth, IMO.

The use of force on non-violent drug offenders, IMO, is the definition of cruel and unusual punishment. There are way too many fucking cops who love to hurt and or kill people they classify as "criminal" based on totally bogus "evidence". Who knows, I might have the same mindset as them if I was in their situation, but that's why we live in a nation of laws. Or so I thought.

I probably know more about the inner-workings of cops than anyone on this board. I play in a weekly "illegal" poker game with 6 officers, ranging from Deputies to a Major. I know them all very well and the stories I have heard them tell over the years can range from pretty incredible to awful. You name it and I have heard it. AA is not far off in his thoughts and I actually like them.

IHateUGAlyDawgs · Post by **IHateUGAlyDawgs** » Fri May 30, 2008 8:58 am

You know, I typed out a vitriol filled post about the bacon discussed above and their cohorts across the country, but I'm not even going to say what I was thinking. Y'all would probably think I'm insane. Sorry for anyone who has cops in their family, but I'll be honest, I fucking hate cops. The only other think I'll say is pigs who act like cowboys for no good reason sometimes end up shot like the old west. I don't have much sympathy. Yes, I'm a TOTAL asshole about this subject. About 73% of the time, cops are the scum of the earth, IMO.

The use of force on non-violent drug offenders, IMO, is the definition of cruel and unusual punishment. There are way too many fucking cops who love to hurt and or kill people they classify as "criminal" based on totally bogus "evidence". Who knows, I might have the same mindset as them if I was in their situation, but that's why we live in a nation of laws. Or so I thought.
I probably know more about the inner-workings of cops than anyone on this board. I play in a weekly "illegal" poker game with 6 officers, ranging from Deputies to a Major. I know them all very well and the stories I have heard them tell over the years can range from pretty incredible to awful. You name it and I have heard it. AA is not far off in his thoughts and I actually like them.

my dad is/was a cop for over 20 years and while I would never say that every cop is a good one, I wouldn't go nearly as far as AA or even as far as TT alludes.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

annarborgator · Post by **annarborgator** » Fri May 30, 2008 9:07 am

What do you think the % is of bad cops or bad cop actions, hater? Something around the opposite of my random number above? Like 27% of them are bad?

Or less?

Just curious about your viewpoint, especially with the insight I'd imagine you have on this subject.

IHateUGAlyDawgs · Post by **IHateUGAlyDawgs** » Fri May 30, 2008 9:14 am

What do you think the % is of bad cops or bad cop actions, hater? Something around the opposite of my random number above? Like 27% of them are bad?

Or less?

Just curious about your viewpoint, especially with the insight I'd imagine you have on this subject.

yeah, I'd say it's probably the reverse...somewhere around 20-25%...granted that's still a high number, but it's just funny to me...like lawyers, everyone fucking hates a cop until they need one.

G8rMom7 · Post by **G8rMom7** » Fri May 30, 2008 9:21 am

^^^And much like lawyers, I think you need to be a sort of prick to do your job well. IMO

TTBHG · Post by **TTBHG** » Fri May 30, 2008 9:22 am

yeah, I'd say it's probably the reverse...somewhere around 20-25%...granted that's still a high number, but it's just funny to me...like lawyers, everyone fucking hates a cop until they need one.

Make no mistake, I don't hate cops by any stretch of the imagination. By in large, I think they try to do what is right. However, no one is going to make me believe they are knights in shining armor. That badge does not guarantee they hold themselves to a higher standard. I know this first hand.

DocZaius · Post by **DocZaius** » Fri May 30, 2008 9:29 am

yeah, I'd say it's probably the reverse...somewhere around 20-25%...granted that's still a high number, but it's just funny to me...like lawyers, everyone fucking hates a cop until they need one.

When I was a prosecutor, I worked pretty close with several local police departments. I got to know which cops were good and which were bad. I knew who I could trust to put on the witness stand and tell the truth.

I'd put the percent of bad cops at around 20%. And by "bad" cops, I mean the ones who would lie to get a conviction or who would engage in questionable practices that would lead to suppression of evidence. The number of cops who were just jerks is a bit higher.