Officers down in Dallas

The Minnesota and Dallas situations seem to have settled to as the one reporter observed to Obama at his press conference in Poland on the fact people always go to their corners on this situations.

The pro-cop people look for any reason to justify the shooting no matter what and the anti-cop looking for another example of victimization. Each side try to use the facts (bending them a lot at times) to support their own beliefs.

On an interesting note, while out driving came upon a car pulled over by law enforcement. There were at least 6 to 7 police cars and they were questioning someone who was leaning back on his car with his hands feebly partially up. He look terrified.
 
Absolutely fantastic post by Mike Rowe:

Off The Wall

"Mike - Is it just me, or have we reached the point of no return? I just watched that live video from the shooting in Minnesota, and I feel so sad and overwhelmed by everything. Please give us a missive from Freddy, or a thoughtful video, or something to lighten the mood. I feel like the country is having a nervous breakdown."

Alicia Dennison

Hi Alicia

Freddy is on a temporary hiatus, and earlier today, I dropped my smartphone in the toilet. I should know better than to multi-task. The damn thing slipped out of my hand mid-stream, prematurely terminating a conversation with my mother, and ruining an otherwise satisfying visit to the loo. Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something? Regardless, I have no camera on which to record today’s video. Apologies.

Regarding your malaise, I do have some thoughts. But let me first offer my sincerest condolences to the families and friends of those cops, and to the good people of Dallas. A great tragedy has occurred in a great city, and those who swore to protect us have died doing so. What can you say in the wake of such a sacrifice?

Frankly, I think it’s natural to feel despondent in the wake of a tragedy like this. However, I did notice something in the aftermath that brought a little perspective, at least to me.

I saw a reporter standing in the street interviewing one of the witnesses. His cameraman had taken a position on a balcony at least 50 feet away, and was filming the interview with a telephoto lens. Consequently, the passersby had no idea the interview was being recorded, much less broadcast live. They just saw a reporter with a microphone talking to some random guy, and paid them no mind.

But then, a man nearby walked over and began to record the interview on his smartphone. Then, a couple of other people stopped to see what was going on. In moments, they too began to record the same interview. In less than thirty seconds, the reporter was literally surrounded by twenty or so self-appointed camera-people, all of whom were filming his interview on their smartphones. That was the scene captured by the real cameraman, and broadcast live into my office in LA, where I sat drinking warm beer at 2 am. And that’s when it occurred to me that we really are a nation armed to the teeth - not just with guns - with smartphones.
And I began to wonder which one really posed the greatest threat?

Overnight it seems, the smartphone has transformed America into a country of 300 million roving reporters, all looking to break, (or star,) in the next Big Story. And now, Facebook and Periscope are letting us broadcast that story live. The implications are enormous. Because now, if you possess a smartphone and a Facebook account - you’re more than a reporter - you’re a network. A network with no filter and no censor. A network with no accountability. A network that can go live from anywhere, at any time.

You’ve asked me to say something to make you feel better, and I’m doing a terrible job. So let me try it like this: The world is not in the midst of some imminent or unavoidable decline, and neither is our country. The species is no more flawed than we were 500 years ago, and the world no more wicked. It just feels that way, because today, we get to see more bad news than ever before. We get to see it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We get to see it live, in our newsfeed, and in our homes. We get to see it in vivid high-definition. And now, unlike any time prior, we get to see it as entertainment.

Listen to the ominous soundtrack that accompanies the next terror attack on Fox. Look at the size of the font, and the lurid backgrounds that announce the next disaster on MSNBC, or the next missing plane on CNN. Listen to the urgency of the announcer as he heralds the latest calamity, and consider the expression on the anchor’s face, as she warns you in somber tones to “stay right where you are,” because “we’ll be right back,” with “more breaking news you can’t afford to miss.”

It’s not just the world, Alicia, or all the trouble in it. And it’s not just the news, or our ability to cover so much more of it. It’s our conscious decision to present it like some never-ending promo for Game of Thrones. That’s why you’re anxious. Because the media has discovered that keeping you informed, is not nearly as profitable as keeping you on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

To sum up, it’s human to feel bad in the wake of tragedies like this one, and normal to feel sad when innocent people are murdered. But do yourself a favor - don’t let cable news or social media or anything else suck you into their bottomless pit of high anxiety. Believe me - they will if you let ‘em. And if that happens, you will indeed reach the point of no return.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to dry the pee out my smartphone.

Mike
 
Ronkh said:
Where there`s a will [to kill people] there`s a way...
Click to expand...

Yep. A whole lot of people killed a whole lot of other people, in large numbers and at a distance, long before they were using modern firearms to do so.

And anyhow, with all the guns and ammo (and high-cap magazines) that we Americans have in circulation, murderously inclined people will always be able to get them, that toothpaste will never go all the way back in the tube here in America whether people like it or not. Whether the approach is motivated by naïveté or some, uhm...agenda...the issue of Gun Violence cannot be legislated away and that approach is, at best, a distraction from the hard work that needs to be done with regard to Personal Values.

House of Wax said:
The world is not in the midst of some imminent or unavoidable decline, and neither is our country. The species is no more flawed than we were 500 years ago, and the world no more wicked. It just feels that way, because today, we get to see more bad news than ever before..the media has discovered that keeping you informed, is not nearly as profitable as keeping you on the verge of a nervous breakdown...
Click to expand...

Glad you posted that, agree completely.
 
Obama’s Biggest Failure | City Journal


When the country elected Barack Obama president in 2008, those of us who disagreed with many of his policy ideas were nonetheless consoled by the fact that his victory illustrated that America had moved well beyond institutional racism. Certainly the fact that Obama had succeeded in both a hard-fought Democratic primary and a general election meant that the country was ready to move past the intense focus on race in our national politics. Boy, were we wrong! Rather than seeing his own victory as a significant advance in American social life, Obama and those he appointed to his administration vigorously put forward the idea that America remains a deeply racist country, and they have redefined racism in the broadest terms possible. It’s not a coincidence, then, that more than seven years into the administration of the nation’s first black president, Americans are more deeply divided on race then they have been in decades. Their own president has fostered the divide.


Several Obama administration initiatives have distorted the national conversation on race. In 2010, for instance, the administration’s education and justice departments launched investigations against school districts around the country for disciplining black students more often, proportionately, than students of other races. A Department of Education study observed that black students were three and a half times more likely to be disciplined. The study alleged that, “everyday educational experience for many students of color violates the principle of equity.” In making its charges, the department ignored compelling data showing that black students were more likely to misbehave in and around school—including crime statistics revealing that blacks were 25 times more likely than their white counterparts to be arrested at schools for serious offenses like battery.
Similarly, the administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development, through a policy known as Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, now is essentially charging wealthier suburban communities like those in Westchester County, New York, with housing discrimination if their populations are not diverse enough for the administration’s taste. Under the new rules, the federal government no longer must prove that these communities are actively engaging in racial discrimination in order to compel them to cast aside local zoning rules and build housing that would attract low-income residents. The mere fact that a town’s population is not diverse suffices for the Obama administration to demand that the community make efforts to transform itself. “HUD’s power grab is based on the mistaken belief that zoning and discrimination are the same,” Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino wrote in 2013. What’s particularly ironic about this implication of racism in Westchester’s case is that the county voted by nearly a two-to-one margin for Obama in 2012.


The president himself has sadly made significant contributions to the notion that America remains deeply racist with his consistent attacks on the police, even in cases where officers’ actions against black perpetrators have subsequently been demonstrated to have been justified. “Too many young men of color,” the president said in November of 2014, “feel targeted by law enforcement, guilty of walking while black, or driving while black, judged by stereotypes that fuel fear and resentment and hopelessness. We know that, statistically, in everything from enforcing drug policy to applying the death penalty to pulling people over, there are significant racial disparities.” Later, he added that, “Communities of color aren’t just making these problems up. . . . These are real issues.” But the president has launched the charges while ignoring significant facts. As Heather Mac Donald has observed, more than 6,000 blacks die of homicides yearly, the overwhelming majority of which are committed by other blacks in minority neighborhoods. The police are more likely to patrol these neighborhoods because that’s where the crime is. And as the Dallas killings sadly illustrate, cops are far more likely to die at the hands of black perpetrators than black men are to be killed by cops. About 40 percent of all cop killings, in fact, are committed by black males. Data also reveal no significant racial component to police shootings. Black officers are far more likely to fire their guns at black citizens than are white officers.


The Obama administration’s tendency to see discrimination in so many crevices and corners of American life has created a new standard for what constitutes racism, as demonstrated by Minnesota governor Mark Dayton’s remarks in the wake of the tragic shooting of a black man, Philando Castile, by police in suburban Minneapolis last week. Implying that race played a role in the killing of Castile, who was legally licensed to carry a firearm, Dayton said that he doubted the shooting would have occurred if Castile had been white. But while the horrific video, taken by Castile’s girlfriend in the immediate aftermath of his shooting, shows that the officer was highly agitated, and the woman claims that the cop overreacted in firing on Castile, there is nothing in the video that is overly racist, and there is no reason to conclude that the outcome would have been different if Castile had been of another race. In America today, however, when a black man is killed by an officer of another color, that fact alone is prima facie evidence for some people that the killing was racially motivated.
Perhaps the most damning evidence against the president and his administration is that in the last four years alone, the percentage of Americans who believe racism is on the rise has nearly doubled. That sharp increase has come even amid little evidence that verified incidents of racism are on the rise. Indeed, efforts by the media to document a significant increase in police shootings of minorities have yielded little. New York City data, for instance, show that the number of times that police discharge their weapons every year has been declining for decades. And a close analysis of a Washington Post database on current shootings by police across America, which describes them in detail, reveals that many were justified.


It’s difficult now to ignore the role that President Obama has played in our growing racial divisions. Elected on themes of hope and renewal, his very ascendancy a powerful statement about the country’s racial journey, he chose to use the White House as a vehicle to introduce a new era of racial grievance into our national discourse. Unfortunately, he succeeded in this effort—and failed America.
 
There`s a boat load of facts out there that show the idea that theres an epidemic of cops murdering black people for no reason is a load of crap
 
You can use statistics to make any issue sound as significant or insignificant as you want. There has been problems in the past and continue to be problems. If you agree that police could improve training and relationships with certain groups then at least we are not trying to write this off as a non-issue.

There is no easy speech or Federal solution to solve this problem just like the Feds cannot fix our education system that is mostly run at the local and state level.
 
I think Obama was referring to this.

Source: LA Times

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