I watched the live stream of the Florida Senate debate on the reinstatement of disgraced ex-sheriff Scott Israel and it was a horrendous shit-show.

For a while it was back-to-back Democrats talking and that was like watching an episode of The Twilight Zone where everybody knows a horrible truth but nobody is willing to say it out loud.

I agree with Hunter Pollack, the brother of MSD victim Meadow Pollack, that FL State Senator Lauren Brook was perhaps the biggest piece of shit of the entire dumpster circus.

She was on the Parkland Committee to investigate the shooting and chose to exonerate Scott Israel anyway.  Her argument was that blaming the Sheriff would exonerate the chicken shit Scot Peterson.

One Democrat, I forget which one, said that it would be unfair to blame an elected superior for the incompetence of one of their subordinates.

This proved, absolutely, that Democrats do not understand the meaning of the word “leadership.”

If the casualties on the third floor of Parkland shooting was the result of the chicken shit Scot Peterson running and hiding, in effect one deputy being a cowardly fuck-up, maybe the Democrats would have a point.

What every single one of them overlooked was that part of why the Governor kicked Scott Israel out of his position, and why the court upheld the decision, was not just the Parkland shooting but the Fort Lauderdale airport shooting the year prior.

The Sheriff’s Department bumble fucked the response to that shooting in 2017, and a year later made EXACTLY THE SAME MISTAKES in 2018 at Parkland.  And it wasn’t just the chicken shit Scot Peterson hiding, it was every singe responding deputy dilly-dallying and setting up a perimeter and not going in.  Clearly Scott Israel didn’t do anything to correct the failures of his department after the FLL which is why MDS was such a bloodbath.

One deputy fucking up in one shooting, once, is a fluke.

Every deputy fucking up in two consecutive shooting in two years is a catastrophic failure of leadership.

Also, Democrat after Democrat was very, gravely concerned about overriding the constitutional office of the position of Sheriff.  These are the same people who voted for gun control in the wake of Parkland.

They are fighting to protect the constitutional authority of one fuck-off Sheriff but have no qualms against infringing on the constitutional rights of 21.3 million Floridians.

It was a shameful display.

A little while ago, I asked if the CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods was going to get sued for tortious interference.

The CEO chose to destroy $5 Million in useable inventory, rather than sell it or return it.  He made a big deal in the media about it, and that he was having the company back out AR-15 sales for political reasons, and knowingly took a quarter-of-a-billion dollar hit to the company.

At the time, I (we) all thought this was merely virtue signaling and woke capitalism.  The Dick’s CEO didn’t have anything to gain in any tangible or material way by scuttling his company’s value.

But he did, and Politico has made that information public.

Dick’s Sporting Goods CEO quietly tests presidential bid

Ed Stack, the CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods and a longtime Republican donor, is testing the waters for a possible third-party presidential bid that could scramble the dynamics of the 2020 general election.

Various messages were presented to a focus group in southern Wisconsin this week centering on the billionaire businessman, along with possible three-way match-ups against Donald Trump and Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren.

The focus group, according to a source who took part in the testing, ran through varying themes involving Stack and heavily focused on his example of “showing leadership” by halting the sale of assault-style rifles at all of Dick’s Sporting Goods stores in the wake of the high school massacre in Parkland, Fla.

So his ending AR-15 sales and destroying millions in inventory was quite possibly a stunt that he could hang his hat on in a third-party presidential run.

Stack has taken on a higher media profile in recent weeks, coinciding with the release of a new book, titled “It’s How We Play the Game.” This week, Stack took aim at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for failing to make headway on gun reform.

“I wish he’d have the guts to bring it to a vote,” Stack said.

Joe Hunter, an adviser to Gary Johnson’s Libertarian Party presidential bids in 2012 and 2016 said he has heard Stack’s “name come up” in discussions about a possible run for president.

It might have also been a stunt to drive book sales – which is in-and-of-itself become a near mandatory prelude to running for president.  (Also, am I really supposed to believe that these luke-warm between the ears politicians have the time and brainpower to write 500 page auto-hagiographies?)

At a recent event to promote his new book, Stack referenced a meeting with Parkland parents.

“One of the things I asked the parents from Parkland as we were leaving was, ‘What is it that you would like me to do?’ They said, ‘We would like you to keep the conversation going,’” he said in Binghamton, N.Y., where he grew up. “That was a big watershed moment and we need to keep this conversation going. Which is one of the reasons I wrote the book. It talks about all the things you did to build the business to be in a position to be able to make these kinds of differences. One of the reasons to write the book was the commitment to those families to keep it going.”

If Al Gore and Hillary Clinton proved anything, it is that running and losing a presidential election can be very lucrative.  So much so that other losers like Hillary Clinton, Beto O’Rourke, and Stacey Abrams have made careers capitalizing on their loses.

Railing against Trump has become a cottage industry for many a (un)principled quasi-conservative.

So the CEO of Dick’s stands to gain substantially in terms of money and notoriety for even a failed run the Presidency.  Book deals, speaking fees, etc. could amount to tens of millions of dollars, plus the fame that comes with it.

If the Politico story is true, the destruction of a quarter-of-a-billion dollars in company value was just a way of getting noticed for an eventual political grandstanding opportunity that would generate much more fame and fortune than quietly running a sporting goods company.

I wonder if Dick’s shareholders are happy about that?

TALLAHASSEE, FLA. (WSVN) – The Florida Senate has voted to uphold Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ suspension of Scott Israel as Broward County’s sheriff.

State senators upheld his suspension in a 25 to 15 vote, Wednesday.

DeSantis suspended Israel when he took office in January 2019 due to his handling of the Parkland shooting. He announced current Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony, the county’s first black sheriff, as his replacement.

Israel said he plans to seek reelection as the county’s sheriff in 2020.

Florida Senate votes to uphold DeSantis’ suspension of Scott Israel

Missed the vote as diner with the missu wa more important. I’ll try to find how people voted later and post it.

About 5 minutes away. You can livestream it via The Florida channel

See ya in a couple of hours

UPDATE 3:10 PM

If seems all Democrats will vote for reinstatement.  That is how it looks so far, Israel is blameless and was betrayed by only one single solitary deputy. I missed some interventions.

UPDATE 3:20 PM

Senator Taddeo (D – not Broward) flips against Israel. “We didn’t hear the parents to ban assault weapons or arm teachers.”

UPDATE 3:29 PM

Senator Rouson (D – not Broward) flips against Israel.  Also the parents influence. My guess is the polls show people would get pissed if  senator ignored the parents.

UPDATE 3:49 PM

Senator Thurston (D – Broward) He came close to say anybody voting against Israel had a quid pro quo with the Governor. He was told to tone it down before he ripped over his tongue. He could not help himsel and started to crap on people and got spanked by Galvano. Then  basically said BSo did not make a mistake. He is the caricature of the cheap southern politician.  His seat must be secure as hell or up for terming out. Obviously voting for Israel.

Did I miss the Republicans? Another Democrat on the floor.

UPDATE 4:07 PM

Senator Gibson (D – not Broward) talking about the Ft Lauderdale shooting. says nobody knew the gun was in the luggage of the shooter, not even TSA.  I thought he did check out the gun at departure.  She also said that if a cop is not properly geared, he should be asked to go after the sound of gunfire. BSO that did not go in were securing perimeter because they had no radio communication.  Apparently executive removal has never been done before in Florida. People are just making shit as they want. She is for Israel.

Reductio at absurdum is the flavor of the day

UPDATE 4:10 PM

Finally a Republican. Senator Bean (R ) went full emotional. against Israel. Short and Sweet.

UPDATE 4:16 PM

Senator Pizzo (D – not Broward) not sure what he said. I think he will vote for Israel

UPDATE 4:28 PM

Senator Bradley (R) declares against Israel

UPDATE 4:35

Senator Torres (D – not Broward)  former NY LEO (Not NYPD) is shocked, shocked I tell you that there is politics in the process.  supports Israel just to piss off the Governor.

I am done…..I’ll just wait for the final vote

I will admit that I am getting slow in my old age. How the heck did I miss something this obvious: Our dear Gun Control “friends” crapping on US Law Enforcement on the other side of the world.

Dear Cops all over the US of A: You are dangerous assholes.
Love and Kisses.
We Of Gun Control. 

I need to meme this for public consumption. What should it be the tagline or title?

I was looking through legislation for the 116th US Congress for another upcoming post when I came across this:

H.R.4789 – To allow Federal law enforcement officers to purchase retired service weapons, and for other purposes.

What is more interesting is that it comes from Rep. Val Butler Demings  [D-FL-10].

There is no text for the bill available online yet.  I have set an alert to let me know when the text is available.

I have purchased law enforcement surplus guns in the past.  Usually, they were cheap and holster worn the taken care of on the inside and they shot well.

Unless this bill very specifically prohibits those weapons from being resold by federal LEO’s, this could be very interesting for us, having retired service weapons trickle their way into the used market.

Personally, I’d love to see more retired service weapons make their way onto the used market.  I know there are a ton of old Remington Model 8 rifles in 35 Remington that were used by the Federal Bureau of Prisons that are sitting in basements gathering dust.  I’d also love to get my hands on some of the older Smith & Wesson revolvers used by the FBI and Treasury Department for years.

Maybe in the future, a change to the law would let the CMP sell retired non-NFA federal LEO guns like it does military weapons.  (If I ever run for Congress, this will be part of my platform)

As for now, I’m going to keep my eye on this bill, it seems interesting.

When I worked in Hotel security, we used this tool a lot to gain entry to rooms with lock issues. The number one problem was the batteries dying before they could be changed and making it impossible to open.

Of course, that also means that anybody who has a this inexpensive tool can access a door that only has a lock that can be opened from the inside with the lever.

There are permanent fixes for the issue, but if you are staying in a hotel and you do not see anything to secure the lock from the inside, there are ways to frustrate or delay an intruder.

Close the bottom gap: if you are already conscious of traveling secure, I am sure you have a couple of rubber wedges for doors in your travel kit. Jam a towel in the gap and secure it with the wedges. If it is visible from the outside, the burglar may rethink twice about breaking in an occupied room. But if it is somebody else with nastier intentions, this will help frustrating the crap out of him, waste time and hopefully making enough noise to warn you.

Jam the lever. Your imagination is the limit. again use towels shoved inside the lever so the string does not have space to work. A piece of foam like used in the pool noodles stuck between the end of the handle and the door, again to stop the string from going in. Your biggest suitcase laying down on the floor behind the door so the tool cannot even be introduced also work, just make sure it is heavy or secured enough it cannot be moved.

And, if you add a portable vibration alarm, you probably double the chances of getting the bad guy to stop what he is doing and run away. Check Amazon as they are a bunch of them and really inexpensive. I would go for one that you can adjust the sensitivity level.

You may have noticed I made the above recommendations from the point of view of you being in the room, Why? Because Life is above Property. If you leave the room, secure valuables either taking them with you or using the room safe or a hotel safe it it is available. Or better yet, don’t take them with you unless they are life or death.

Travel as in most of life less is invariably more. And most importantly: never take along anything on your journey so valuable or dear that its loss would devastate you.

The Accidental Tourist.

This is a movie I watched back in 1988 and I don’t remember much about it, but that quote stuck with me ever since. And it is a darned good rule to follow.