WHILE HOWIE IS SUFFERING FROM A SERIOUS BEER OPENER CUT

by Bob Walsh

This is a brief compilation of what I believe to be interesting stuff that happened while Howie was recovering from a very serious beer opener cut to his hand and unable to type.

NYC.  The New York City P D has put the brakes on retirements while, at the same time, they cancelled a new officer academy of more than 1100 newbie officers.  They can't keep officers from quitting and their numbers of people leaving are WAY UP.  They apparently can, however, refuse to process retirement applications.  That's what they are doing  Seems inherently dishonest to me some how, but then again, inherently dishonest and Bill deBlasio seem to go together.

Berkeley, CA.  The city has decided that too many "honest citizens: are getting shot and killed by cops in "routine" traffic stops, so the Berkeley P D is going to stop making traffic stops. They are going to set up a new traffic safety department which will use unarmed, not-cops to do routine traffic enforcement.  I actually know something about the law in the formerly great state of California and I can't see how this could work.  Non-cops have no legal authority to pull you over.  The law does not require you to cough up your drivers license to a non-cop, nor show your vehicle registration and insurance information to anybody except cops and DMV personnel.  Plus I sort of wonder how many complete morons are going to sign up to do traffic stops in the Bay Area with no legal authority, no legal protection and no weapons?  

Trumpland.  President Trump issued a commutation of sentence to his old buddy Roger Stone.  The media went bat-shit crazy.  Strange they didn't do that when Bill Clinton pardoned his brother, or outright sold a pardon to Mark Rich for $500,000.  Nancy Pelosi is proposing legislation to limit the ability of the president, or at least a Republican president, to exercise clemency to people to whom he has a direct connection.  

The Biden Bunker.  The talking heads are making more and more sometimes not so subtle noise about Biden backing out of the debates.  So far Senile Joe is claiming he WANTS to debate Trump.  He might be so senile he doesn't even know he is senile.  There would be a political cost, and maybe a large one, in this move.  He would have to have some way of getting out of them to make it look "fair and reasonable" and that would be hard as they could be done completely without an in-person audience.  

DOJ.  The feds are still having some level of success identifying people engaging in riots and charging them with federal offenses, mostly concerning fire bombing.  Whether they will get any successful prosecutions is another question.    

Varsity Blues.  Lori Laughlin and husband are taking a significant bath on unloading their Bel Air mansion prior to going to the big house.  They are going to have to make do with living in the beach house until they move to the Graybar Hotel.

Automobiles.  The new incarnation of the Ford BRONCO is out and about.  Pretty cool actually.  Three different variations.  One of them is a pretty serious rock crawler.

Seattle.  A local judge has given permission for the Recall Mayor Dipshit move to go ahead.  They need to get enough signatures to equal 25% of the vote cast in the last mayoral election within 160 days.  Doubt they will do it, but you never know.  Even in Seattle there are probably a fair number of normal people, well concealed in their closets though they may be.