Archive of ‘personal’ category

Covering an event that happened in my city in 2014.

This is the picture of someone who has been in the local jail for seven years, so, I mean… so much for a fair and speedy trial, right? But in May of 2014, police officers attempted to execute a no-knock warrant on this man’s apartment, and as soon as he realized that someone was breaking into his home — even if they were cops — he began firing back, and in the midst of everyone firing, a cop was shot beyond the confines of his bulletproof garb and would later succumb to that injury at a local hospital. This man, pictured right here, is facing the death penalty because that can be applied to someone in our state if they shoot and kill a member of the police. On a tip from what would later be revealed to be a bad informant, local law enforcement was able to get approval to execute a no-knock warrant in a matter of minutes. The judge who made this decision seriously made it in a matter of minutes. During the raid on his apartment, an officer tripped over a flash grenade which would come to obscure everyone’s vision. It is entirely possible that the cop who was shot was shot as a result of friendly fire, and this has been acknowledged. No attempts have been made to determine whether it was a bullet from Guy’s gun or a bullet from a police officer’s gun that killed this man.

As soon as this man realized that it was members of the police who had entered his home, he surrendered. In exchange, the police threatened to kill him as they arrested him, and in the process several of his girlfriend’s ribs were broken. Later, after he was arrested, his apartment was thoroughly searched, and there was absolutely no contraband or drugs in the apartment… none whatsoever. Despite the fact that our state is a Castle Doctrine (“castle law”) state, and one is under the law allowed to injure and possibly kill anyone who breaks into their domicile if they are a threat to their life, Guy currently sits in the county jail facing the death penalty for this. Years later, in large part due to this incident, no-knock warrants became illegal in our city. But the fact of the matter is that they were legal at the time this happened… and three public defenders so far have tried to encourage him to take a plea bargain in this case, which he refuses to do to this day.

I remember when this happened. I remember waking up at five in the morning clearly hearing gunfire. Since this city is… a bit known for the high crime rate that it has, I went back to sleep, but I would later come to find out that the entire street that this happened on had been blocked off, so I had to find an alternate route to my son’s speech therapy. Here I am though, wondering when this “speedy trial” will take place for this man.

We move onto the manufactured debt ceiling crisis.

I choose the subject of this post I do out of acknowledgement of the fact that it has happened several times since the birth of my youngest son, all while conceding to the possibility — and possibly, probably even the reality — of the United States defaulting on its debt, which has never happened before in the history of the United States and is rumored to have potentially catastrophic effects both to it and to the world economy. It’s rumored that it will delay (or worse, stop, at least until it were resolved) all payments made by the government, which would include both of the boys’ disability checks and even the child support that Bub’s paternal grandmother pays for her adult son since it is almost guaranteed to come out of his paternal grandfather’s disability or retirement… whatever he’s getting. All of it comes from the same “pot”, so to speak, even if the criteria for the payment and even the reasons may be different. If the United States can no longer borrow — create new debt — to cover shortfalls in cash flow when it has more obligations than it does cash on hand, everything paid for by the government goes on the chopping block, and we don’t even know what the scope of that chopping block is yet other than “really bad” because the United States has thus far been responsible enough to avert that by ensuring that the debt ceiling was either raised or suspended. That may or may not happen this time since Senate Republicans are digging their heels in about how Democrats should raise the debt ceiling — they can’t suspend it this way, they have to raise it to a specific dollar amount — through reconciliation, which only requires a simple majority rather than sixty Senators agreeing to invoke cloture to allow for a vote. Or unanimous consent, which… isn’t happening.

However, reconciliation tends to take weeks, and Pelosi and Schumer… don’t want to do it.

Even though Senate Republicans have told them that they will not in any way, shape, or form help them raise or suspend the debt ceiling themselves. McConnell has even told them to raise it through reconciliation.

There are times that I don’t like this country, and now would be one of those times.

We are manufacturing drama for the sake of doing so to see who, if anyone, will blink. Other people suffer.

Will the government actually stay open this time?

It should be concerning that I have to write the phrase “I’ve lived through several government shutdowns at this point”, the one most affecting us being the one in 2011 because both of the kids were on WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) and that isn’t mandatorily funded. Everyone who was on it was advised to use their debit cards or vouchers at the start of October because most states had residual funding and could continue the program with it until they ran out of funding, which is exactly what I did… I went to the WIC store in my city and got all of the staples that we could get. All of the other benefits and services that we get fall under mandatory funding, which is affected by the debt ceiling — and oh, we’re bumping up against that. Wonderful. It looks like October is going to be a positively wonderful month for my family. It truly will be.

Meanwhile, I am continuing to homeschool both of the boys in spite of our state funding virtual schooling again. Only 10% of the district’s students can be enrolled in it, which means that there is never a guarantee that either of them would be selected, and there is no prioritizing for disability. The school also has to have or exceed a certain grade to be permitted to homeschool… or maybe that’s the district in general, which makes things even more of a toss-up if I were to consider it. And then there’s the fact that both of the boys would have to go to their respective schools to take the state test, and we know for a fact that Bub is not testable. So they would literally have to go up on campus where the schools and the districts can not mandate masks by executive order from the governor, which means that there is a risk of exposure to COVID-19, and then they could bring it home to each other or give it to me. At any rate, though, even with accommodations (assuming that the school actually gave them), if they did not get or exceed a certain grade on the test, they would not be permitted to continue virtual schooling. I know for a fact that Monster has a confirmed intellectual disability because he is more testable in that regard. If he does, Bub has to. Homeschooling for the long-term just makes more sense in our situation, and it is working well for us. I swear I have ADD or ADHD, though…

1 211 212 213 214 215 305