Officer Ed

I'm not PC nor am I religious. But the words "separation of church and state" can be found nowhere in the Constitution. The First Amendment was intended to keep government out of religion, not religion out of government. Jefferson, Madison, Fanklin, et. al. would be horrified to see how today's radical atheists, along with legislating judges; have subverted the meaning of the First Amendment.
They say that there are no atheists in foxholes. Emergency responders are constantly in "foxholes."

The liberals refuse to enforce our immigration laws....then claim that the immigration system is "broken." What's BROKEN is the welfare system. It invites fraud....and fraud is what it generates.
They should go back to the commodities system where those who qualified could pick up food boxes once a month. The boxes did not contain rib steak, frozen mashed potatoes, or McDonald's coupons, they contained rice, flour, "government cheese", canned pork, bread, etc. It was designed to keep the needy from going hungry without any frills. It also helped the farmers who provided the commodities to the government.
As a fairly affluent society, we have an OBLIGATION to help those who are unable to help themselves. But that obligation does not extend to those who use and abuse the system.

The liberals refuse to enforce our immigration laws....then claim that the immigration system is "broken." What's BROKEN is the welfare system. It invites fraud....and fraud is what it generates.
They should go back to the commodities system where those who qualified could pick up food boxes once a month. The boxes did not contain rib steak, frozen mashed potatoes, or McDonald's coupons, they contained rice, flour, "government cheese", canned pork, bread, etc. It was designed to keep the needy from going hungry without any frills. It also helped the farmers who provided the commodities to the government.
As a fairly affluent society, we have an OBLIGATION to help those who are unable to help themselves. But that obligation does not extend to those who use and abuse the system.

The liberals refuse to enforce our immigration laws....then claim that the immigration system is "broken." What's BROKEN is the welfare system. It invites fraud....and fraud is what it generates.
They should go back to the commodities system where those who qualified could pick up food boxes once a month. The boxes did not contain rib steak, frozen mashed potatoes, or McDonald's coupons, they contained rice, flour, "government cheese", canned pork, bread, etc. It was designed to keep the needy from going hungry without any frills. It also helped the farmers who provided the commodities to the government.
As a fairly affluent society, we have an OBLIGATION to help those who are unable to help themselves. But that obligation does not extend to those who use and abuse the system.

The liberals refuse to enforce our immigration laws....then claim that the immigration system is "broken." What's BROKEN is the welfare system. It invites fraud....and fraud is what it generates.
They should go back to the commodities system where those who qualified could pick up food boxes once a month. The boxes did not contain rib steak, frozen mashed potatoes, or McDonald's coupons, they contained rice, flour, "government cheese", canned pork, bread, etc. It was designed to keep the needy from going hungry without any frills. It also helped the farmers who provided the commodities to the government.
As a fairly affluent society, we have an OBLIGATION to help those who are unable to help themselves. But that obligation does not extend to those who use and abuse the system.

Not precisley correct as to "expressing an understanding" of the Establishment Clause. It's a phrase taken from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson 25 years after the Constitution was written . Jefferson was not even the author of the 1st Amendment. However, Jefferson and Franklin DID establish the first public school system. The schools were generally in churches and the Bible was REQUIRED reading...with the full acquiescence of Jefferson. The Bible was required reading, and teachers led prayers, in most public schools right up into the 20th century.
I am not a Christian. In fact, I am not religious at all. I am a Constitutional scholar who has studied the prolific writings of the Founders. The Bill of Rights mean EXACTLY what they say. The left is on a bent to add to and subvert it. But the intent of the Establishment Clause was solely to prevent the U.S. from doing what England did...creating a single official state religion. Many of the Founders came to America to escape the Church of England headed by the King. They wanted to ensure that nothing like it would be "established" in the U.S. That's it.
Therefore, the Clause says that "CONGRESS shall MAKE NO LAW" establishing a religion. That's it. All the rest of this "seperation of church and state" idiocy has been added by activist judges in collusion with radical atheists.
The Clause says nothing whatsoever - and nothing whatsoever was intended - that would prevent religious observances in government events and on government property. Those preclusions occurred subsequent to the appointment of liberal activists judges, beginning in the 1950s, improperly legislating from the bench.

I'm not PC nor am I religious. But the words "separation of church and state" can be found nowhere in the Constitution. The First Amendment was intended to keep government out of religion, not religion out of government. Jefferson, Madison, Fanklin, et. al. would be horrified to see how today's radical atheists, along with legislating judges; have subverted the meaning of the First Amendment.
They say that there are no atheists in foxholes. Emergency responders are constantly in "foxholes."

I'm not PC nor am I religious. But the words "separation of church and state" can be found nowhere in the Constitution. The First Amendment was intended to keep government out of religion, not religion out of government. Jefferson, Madison, Fanklin, et. al. would be horrified to see how today's radical atheists, along with legislating judges; have subverted the meaning of the First Amendment.
They say that there are no atheists in foxholes. Emergency responders are constantly in "foxholes."

I also am not a "PC" person, however those people being critical have never seen the things or performed the duties that we have. There are basically 2 things that help us keep our sanity - a really warped sense of humor and some kind of faith. I would be willing to bet that if a firefighter is Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Atheist, or whatever; they would not have an issue with it.

Here in the wild west, such vehicles are merely called "stealth cars" or "aggressive driver cars." The typical aggressive driver car is a Dodge Charger, but I've seen a few Challengers and Camaros, too.
Almost no one spots these cars as undercover police cars. But, then, I drive a fully-marked Crown Vic with a full-size light bar on top, and people still commit violations right in front of me. I was once on the freeway, in a hurry to get back to my beat and not intending to make any traffic stops, when a woman went flying past me doing 22 mph over the posted limit. I pulled behind her and tapped the air horn, hoping just to slow her down. Nada. I bleeped the siren. Nada. After a couple of miles, I lit her up and made the traffic stop. When I approached the driver, I said "I just want to get a look at the kind of person who would fly past a fully-marked police car doing 'criminal speed'." She said "I didn't SEE you....I was talking! (to her passenger)." Amazing. No wonder there are so many collisions.
The point is that few drivers are going to notice ANY stealth car.

My understanding is that over the past few years this group has had something like 40 of their rice rockets impounded and numerous arrests made. The instigator of the road rage incident was driving on a suspended license.
As "10512" wrote, these punks rarely stop for police. They'll take off between cars, down sidewalks, through yards, etc. They know that department policy is not to pursue for traffic violations.
Personally, if I had been the driver of the SUV, I might still have been beaten up, but the ricers would have had to climb over the bodies of 15 of their pals to get to me. That's all the ammunition I carry.

My understanding is that over the past few years this group has had something like 40 of their rice rockets impounded and numerous arrests made. The instigator of the road rage incident was driving on a suspended license.
As "10512" wrote, these punks rarely stop for police. They'll take off between cars, down sidewalks, through yards, etc. They know that department policy is not to pursue for traffic violations.
Personally, if I had been the driver of the SUV, I might still have been beaten up, but the ricers would have had to climb over the bodies of 15 of their pals to get to me. That's all the ammunition I carry.

My understanding is that over the past few years this group has had something like 40 of their rice rockets impounded and numerous arrests made. The instigator of the road rage incident was driving on a suspended license.
As "10512" wrote, these punks rarely stop for police. They'll take off between cars, down sidewalks, through yards, etc. They know that department policy is not to pursue for traffic violations.
Personally, if I had been the driver of the SUV, I might still have been beaten up, but the ricers would have had to climb over the bodies of 15 of their pals to get to me. That's all the ammunition I carry.

My understanding is that over the past few years this group has had something like 40 of their rice rockets impounded and numerous arrests made. The instigator of the road rage incident was driving on a suspended license.
As "10512" wrote, these punks rarely stop for police. They'll take off between cars, down sidewalks, through yards, etc. They know that department policy is not to pursue for traffic violations.
Personally, if I had been the driver of the SUV, I might still have been beaten up, but the ricers would have had to climb over the bodies of 15 of their pals to get to me. That's all the ammunition I carry.

My understanding is that over the past few years this group has had something like 40 of their rice rockets impounded and numerous arrests made. The instigator of the road rage incident was driving on a suspended license.
As "10512" wrote, these punks rarely stop for police. They'll take off between cars, down sidewalks, through yards, etc. They know that department policy is not to pursue for traffic violations.
Personally, if I had been the driver of the SUV, I might still have been beaten up, but the ricers would have had to climb over the bodies of 15 of their pals to get to me. That's all the ammunition I carry.

From what I have heard about this electrical fire, unless someone called it in when the problem first started happening it would not made much of a difference. People forget you had 30 MPH winds driving that fire so once flame broke out the theory of fire doubling every minute went out the window.
I have heard of plenty of large fires were paid departments were completely in charge and they still lost a lot. I have heard paid departments cancel mutual aid just to end up calling them back 10 minutes later as they are loosing the building.
No volunteers are not perfect but no one is. In this current world especially in our situation where we have a large mix of paid and volunteer departments we need to stop fighting one another and work with each other to get the job done.
Believe it or not volunteers will support paid firefighters MORE when they are not A**holes back at them.

*ROFL*!

*ROFL*!

We used to have a little old lady who would regularly call 9-1-1 to report that "someone" had turned off the power to her house. She was a repeat customer, so we knew that she liked to plug in space heaters heat lamps, hair dryers, and all the lights in the house. The breaker would trip, and she'd call in a prowler call.
Due to her age and mental state, we'd just roll to her house, reset her breaker, and assure her that we'd keep an eye on the neighborhood and keep the prowler at bay.
Of course, we also have our share of prank 9-1-1 calls, calls made by drunks and druggies, and kids playing with the phone. After their kids had called 9-1-1 and hung up on four different occasions, resulting in four "unknown trouble" dispatches, I had to threaten to arrest the parents if it happened again. Oddly, it stopped.

The judiciary just can't seem to stop meddling in the affairs of the emergency services. First Garaufis (sp) stymies recruitment for years and now Freed wants to control apparatus and maintenance. And beyond the FDNY you have Sheindlin curbing stop, frisk and question. There are an awful lot of judges out there, on every level, local to the supremes, who legislate from the bench. Its long been a disturbing trend that seems to occur more and more frequently. I must have missed the memo advising that attainment of the bench gives you the ability to know what's best for everyone else regardless of any factual information to the contrary.

Here in the wild west, such vehicles are merely called "stealth cars" or "aggressive driver cars." The typical aggressive driver car is a Dodge Charger, but I've seen a few Challengers and Camaros, too.
Almost no one spots these cars as undercover police cars. But, then, I drive a fully-marked Crown Vic with a full-size light bar on top, and people still commit violations right in front of me. I was once on the freeway, in a hurry to get back to my beat and not intending to make any traffic stops, when a woman went flying past me doing 22 mph over the posted limit. I pulled behind her and tapped the air horn, hoping just to slow her down. Nada. I bleeped the siren. Nada. After a couple of miles, I lit her up and made the traffic stop. When I approached the driver, I said "I just want to get a look at the kind of person who would fly past a fully-marked police car doing 'criminal speed'." She said "I didn't SEE you....I was talking! (to her passenger)." Amazing. No wonder there are so many collisions.
The point is that few drivers are going to notice ANY stealth car.

Here in the wild west, such vehicles are merely called "stealth cars" or "aggressive driver cars." The typical aggressive driver car is a Dodge Charger, but I've seen a few Challengers and Camaros, too.
Almost no one spots these cars as undercover police cars. But, then, I drive a fully-marked Crown Vic with a full-size light bar on top, and people still commit violations right in front of me. I was once on the freeway, in a hurry to get back to my beat and not intending to make any traffic stops, when a woman went flying past me doing 22 mph over the posted limit. I pulled behind her and tapped the air horn, hoping just to slow her down. Nada. I bleeped the siren. Nada. After a couple of miles, I lit her up and made the traffic stop. When I approached the driver, I said "I just want to get a look at the kind of person who would fly past a fully-marked police car doing 'criminal speed'." She said "I didn't SEE you....I was talking! (to her passenger)." Amazing. No wonder there are so many collisions.
The point is that few drivers are going to notice ANY stealth car.

I agree that this is absurd. But there are other factors to consider. For example, these firefighters know that they were not covered by the city's benefit package. I assume that their families knew, also. Something like 2/3 of the firefighters in the U.S. are volunteers. They also risk their lives, and they not only do not get benefits, they don't even get paid.
When I began my career in law enforcement, I was a reserve deputy sheriff. That means I worked for free and I received no benefits. If I had been killed or permanently injured in the line of duty. my family would have received nothing from the county.
This is the nature of what many of us are willing to accept in order to serve our communities as first responders.
The Prescott Firefighter families have all received large checks from the 100 Club of Arizona. They will receive workman's comp benefits and Surviving Spouse benefits from Social Security. The federal government also has benefits including, as least for police officers so I assume it includes firefighters, college tuition for the children of those killed in the line of duty.
This was not an arbitrary decision by City of Prescott bureaucrats. It's actually party of the city code. It's the law. So, the city officials cannot just ignore it. But I understand that there is a move underway to repeal the law and make it retroactive. We'll see.

Dan, I caught this today crossing Mill @ Catherine. The answer to who cares? They had a Sanford and Son packed with enough lights to make the biggest volly jealous and shot across three lanes of high speed traffic, and for what? It's unfortunate that someone died but there's no hurry, that situation isn't changing, and it's wrong to risk putting other people in said hearse over it.