defrauding taxpayers, LA cops at it again, and the 4th amendment...

so someone got a sex change and bought tittie video's with their hurricane katrina relief funds...god help us all. congress has their panties up in a hizzy because the american taxpayer has supposedly been defrauded and is "the ultimate victim" while the victims of katrina have been insulted. you know what...i don't give a shit what these people did with their funds...hell, they earned their week at the tittie bar more than the president ever earned a damn thing in his life (unless being born into a family with century long ties to bigtime oil money and the intelligence community and then running business after business into the ground and destroying the texas rangers is "earning")...or these enraged congressfolk for that matter. where was the outrage in congress when government contracts were being bloated and handed out for projects not needed and not helping anyone? where was the outrage in congress when the federal budget was being raped by useless pork projects that victimized the american taxpayer? where was the outrage in congress when the current tax cuts led to the wealthiest paying and even lower percentage of their disposable income while the average taxpayer got screwed? getting your penis chopped off or your vagina made into an appendage isn't the fraud here...you fuckers on the hill are the fraud...stop your embarrassing grandstanding and try doing something beneficial to someone other than yourself and the goddamn lobby that lined your pockets asshole.

cops in LA have had quite the itchy trigger fingers lately...once again a high speed chase ended in the death of the suspect after over 70 rounds were pumped into his vehicle. this being the third time in the last year or so that cops in LA have used force to the tune of at least 50 rounds, including firing off 120 rounds at a suspect in january (for which they apologized to the community after bullets went into nearby homes..."oops, sorry"). and oddly enough, these incidents are happening in neighborhoods like compton. hmmm. this time six deputies were on the scene...70 rounds against one guy...in a car. a witness said the barrage lasted 30 seconds. but it's ok...because they saw him driving erratically see (hence the 60 mph chase), and then he banged a couple of cruisers after he was boxed in...obviously the threat of this big car to the little officers had to be neutralized...i mean, asking them to step out of the way is a little much...if i had to choose between moving to the side or firing about 12 rounds into a car...i choose bullets. apparently now resisting a traffic stop and poor parallel parking ability is now grounds for death.

this brings me to another point...the decision in Hudson v. Michigan which came down yesterday. this is a direct quote..."another development over the past half-century that deters civil-rights violations is the increasing professionalism of police forces, including a new emphasis on internal police discipline." i think scalia forgot to add "...just ignore the trigger happy ones and the ones that lie on the stand and in affidavits to support warrants and the racist ones and the like."

and my point in bringing up this case...contrary to what the media may want you to believe the day after...the sky is not falling...the 4th Amendment is still in tact (as much as folks in washington and calling them "conservatives" may wish otherwise). in all honesty, excluding evidence for violations of the "knock and announce" rule was always on pretty thin ice given the rationale the supreme court adopted for excluding evidence seized through violations of the 4th Amendment...that being deterence (which, if you ask me, is a crock of shit...the exclusionary rule should be placed to protect and uphold the rights of individuals, not to "deter" police misconduct...but that is for another day). police still need a warrant or exigent circumstances...once they have a warrant, they just don't need to tell you they are coming in...and it really isn't such a stretch from their previous rulings as the news last night wanted me to believe.

on a side note...regardless of your political leanings you have to admit, scalia can write a legal opinion.

if we walk away they'll walk away...