Postal Inspectors are Federal Law enforcement, and while you could argue that their budget hasn’t kept up with inflation, it hasn’t been cut either.
Point is, while I’ll always support the need for the US Post Office, and support employees who work in any capacity to deliver mail, I can’t be as charitable with the USPIS when they have the manpower to spare for warrantless surveillance programs.
When I was a carrier, I had a business road on my route, all the mailboxes were at the curb for every business. On two or three separate occasions, I’d get to the last box and it looked rougher than it did the previous day. Business owner came out and told me the box had been broken into again, along with several others on the road, and wanted to know what we could/would do about it.
I called my postmaster and explained and asked if USPIS would be getting involved (as the business owner also asked). I was told no, they don’t get involved in those sorts of things, the owner would just have to file a report with the police, and we’d stop delivering on Saturdays since none of the businesses would be open.
I never got a further explanation than that, so I couldn’t say why USPIS doesn’t get involved, but they don’t seem to anymore. 🤷♀️
I understand they wouldn’t get involved in regular local mail mailbox crime, but this was inside of a US Post Office.
That has to be the easiest layup possible a USPIS agent to get a case closure off from, but now I’m really curious about what jurisdiction local police or sheriff’s deputies even have when dealing with crimes that occur inside of the post office, which I’m fairly certain are federal buildings.
I always thought that crimes that occur on federal property, or land, are automatically assigned to federal law enforcement.
To preface, I am not defending the police or the piece of shit abuser. This was handled extraordinarily horrendously. Police even knew about the guy’s crimes and let him off without a slap on the wrist.
The basis of my thoughts comes from this paragraph in the article:
Police said that Kizer travelled from Milwaukee to Volar’s home in Kenosha in June 2018 armed with a gun. She shot him twice in the head, set his house on fire and took his car.
I don’t know any info beyond what the article gives, but it sounds like at that point she wasn’t being held captive and murdered to get away from her abuser. She actively plotted and had the freedom to travel and kill him. Unless there’s something I’m missing, I don’t think I could consider this as actively being self defense.
Just a thought: what happens when that “we” is people who - say - think the courts and the police are not doing their job in sending home all “these illegal immigrants” or something like that?
Then we have a nice little civil war again, kill a few million of them, and this time when they surrender for the second time, we do a hard reset of their entire culture - no monuments, no statues, no memorials, no representation or voting for any of them or any who aided or abetted them, or their children, or their children’s children.
I know this is beside the point, but what powers the sun is nuclear fusion- fusing hydrogen into helium- while the bombs dropped on Japan were fission- splitting uranium into various lighter elements.
So if failing to resort to violence doesn’t solve your problems, you failed to resort to enough of it? We should be willing to consider all solutions up to and including dropping nukes on our own country to kill the Republicans?
That is supposed to be the motivation for the system to do it’s job… preventing groups with minority opinions from taking matters into thier own hands. But that doesn’t seem to be enough anymore. I don’t suggest this path because it is a good choice. It’s a horrible choice. Innocent people will be hurt or killed for sure. But that is already happening in larger and larger numbers from the systems inaction. And the cost of inaction is past the tipping point with the cost of action. And I see no other choice. But I am open to suggestions.
Which is true, and also doesn’t address the point. (Also, obligatory ACAB.)
The problem with vigilantism is that the vigilante both decides whether an offense has been committed, and what the punishment should be for that offense. If I’ve been hit repeatedly by people speeding in my neighborhood, and cops aren’t giving the speeders tickets, no one in their right mind is going to say that I should start shooting at people driving in my neighborhood. (Or, I would hope no one in their right mind would say that.)
That doesn’t prove it to anyone else, of course, but it doesn’t seem like anyone is (now?) contesting the the offense in question was committed. Just that he got off free and she had no recourse. This is not a one time event, either, it’s a pattern where the law fails to protect people in this situation and then throws the book at them if they take matters into their own hands. If she had not, do you think this dude would still be free? Or would the law have eventually caught up to him, after who knows how many more victims?
You don’t get a license to kill just because the justice system failed you. I’m loving how everyone is screaming about how bad the justice system is with this case yet they think a bunch of pissed off ppl thirsty for revenge is a somehow the more measured and practical solution.
What if after she set the house on fire it burned down the whole block? What if the guy had a victim in the house with him when it happened? Another person pointed out she could’ve destroyed evidence from other victims. Two wrongs don’t make a right
Even if she didn’t harm any other people - the criminal justice system in the US doesn’t allow for the death penalty for cases of rape. (And in point of fact, part of the reason that we don’t do that any more is because it tended to be disproportionately applied against black men accused of assaulting white women.)
I’m not saying it’s more measured or practical, I’m saying it’s inevitable when the system doesn’t serve the people. I’m saying chaos is preferable to tyranny.
Downvoted just f the ACAB. Who said it’s obligatory? Why? That one phrase that reeks of generalization, civilized society has adopted it now? If this is not what it’s supposed to mean, I am open to explanations.
The point is that the system of policing that we have now is corrupt, and doesn’t protect or help victims. We see this quite often with sexual assault, where cops flatly refuse to investigate; rape kits remain untested for decades. The “good” police officers that try to affect change from within the system end up empowering the system, or get thrown out.
So if the current system is corrupt, what are the chances for a vigilante system? Somehow less corrupt? And based on what, the goodness of those who are willing to be vigilantes? Sounds like Police v2 minus any shred of accountability or system to handle abuse cases.
I don’t support vigilantism, no, as you should clearly be able to see from the context of my other comments. I do support completely overhauling the entire criminal justice system, and largely eliminating court precedents that make police officers largely immune from prosecution for failing to perform their jobs, or for malicious actions.
There’s still answers out there that are “more right” than others.
Jill, what do you think the price of this bag of rice is? $8.50? Unfortunately, not correct at all. Bob? The 1950s Hall of Rock and Roll on VHS? That’s a thoroughly nonsensical answer that barely even respects the question! The answer was $11.
Sentencing judge, what do you think this man’s punishment for rape should be? Nothing? Oh, wow, that’s a very obviously wrong answer! Vigilante, your go. Well, we were looking for “A life sentence with chance of parole after 30 years”, but I will say, “Shoot him in the head” is closer to correct.
I feel like some people there’s a “magic light” applied to courtrooms with judges, that makes their judgments more fair by implication. But it’s absolutely possible for three people in lawnchairs discussing matters over beer to make a more fair judgment than some judges.
I feel like some people there’s a “magic light” applied to courtrooms with judges
That’s certainly true if “fair” in your view isn’t the same thing as, “consistent with the law and precedent”.
Let me pose this a slightly different way: a person murders a baby. Should the person be arrested? Should they be tried for murder? Should they be executed? What if the ‘baby’ is actually an 8 week old fetus, and the person is a doctor performing a legal elective abortion? Religious zealots and right-wing misogynists are going to argue that killing the doctor is morally justified and “fair”. Should each person get to apply their own moral code?
Ah, yes, so that rape is treated the same as murder. Which will result in more murders. Because if you go to prison for the same amount of time either way, why not go all-in an murder your victim?
This isn’t a case of fighting moral codes. This is a case of battles of safety.
There are many issues of safety that affect all people, including food safety, mental safety, economic safety. All of those have resulted in court battles, as well as court failures. Safety from violence is the basic one, and people will often need to make their decisions around it on a faster basis than courts can proceed.
That’s the practical analysis, rather than the idealistic view where every single disagreement of any kind would receive a protracted court debate with all evidence present.
People are all capable of in-the-moment vigilantism (heck, most murderers feel this way). Society can still evaluate their cases afterwards to say whether they were warranted or not. I argue people should feel some safety from repercussions if society can agree their actions demanded some form of immediacy beyond what courts could provide, and did something good for society or were necessary for their own safety.
A zealot would get no such votes unless they were given a jury of their fellow zealots, and if that’s possible then I can think of no fair justice system in such a society.
Safety from violence is the basic one, and people will often need to make their decisions around it on a faster basis than courts can proceed.
Anti-choice zealots argue precisely this: they are protecting babies from premeditated violence.
It’s not what I believe. But it’s the justification that they use to bomb reproductive clinics and murder OBGYNs.
That’s the risk we run when we accept vigilante justice; we normalize it so that other people can use it for other reasons that we may or may not find morally acceptable.
Society can still evaluate their cases afterwards to say whether they were warranted or not.
Isn’t that what happened here? She was charged with murder, and she took a plea deal since it’s likely she would have lost a court case; she had no reasonable claim of being in fear for her life, and as a matter of law, her attorney wouldn’t be allowed to make the argument that her abuser/victim deserved to be killed.
When the official justice system fails people, some of them will take matters into their own hands. Frankly it’s surprising there isn’t more political violence targeting police and corrupt judges.
Are you willing to universalize that though? Are you willing to allow all people that believe that they have been treated unjustly to take justice into their own hands?
By definition they aren’t vigilantes if they’re state-sanctioned. You can’t be both a vigilante and state sanctioned.
Yes, cops pick and choose which laws to enforce (and I’m not addressing which laws cops follow, since it’s not directly relevant here). But cops are also supposed to be disinterested parties; the idea with having cops enforcing the law rather than a person that feels wronged is that cops ar supposed to be more even-handed, even if that’s not the way that it always–or even often–works out. Accepting vigilantism means that we throw out any semblance of impartiality, and make everything subjective.
That’s essentially what happened here. She wasn’t at risk any longer and the murder was premeditated. The prosecutor did their job here as they are supposed to, and it was sentenced as it should have been according to the law.
That being said, this is really why we have pardons, and I hope one is granted in this case.
Do we know she wasn’t at risk any longer? I don’t see that in the article. Or what about this guys other victims. Are they also no longer at risk? Again, don’t see mention of that in this article
Trauma is a hell of a thing to deal with. Feeling unsafe as long as a person’s abuser walks freely, even if they are far away, is VERY common. I’d imagine if it was someone who was repeatedly abused that’d magnify the trauma response.
Not saying she didn’t murder that guy, but knowledge about the psychological effects of sexual abuse does give context to her actions. If she was feeling tortured by this unsafe feeling, like he could come back at anytime to hurt her again, and almost obesessing over it(trauma can do this to anyone) I can see why she did what she did.
It’s not like mental health care and support is widely available to people here in the US. Shit is expensive, and that’s if your insurance covers it…if you even have insurance. Add in trying to find someone who specializes in trauma care and it can get really overwhelming and discouraging. People give up on seeking help and spiral.
A lot of things could’ve prevented this. Things like easy access to mental health support, or I dunno…actually putting rapists in jail where they can’t hurt more people.
Rapists could just not rape people. Seems simple right? It’s not like that rapist raped someone in self defense. It not like he raped her because he felt unsafe. He did it because he was a terrible human being.
On another note, looking at your comment history you’ve said the same thing multiple times on this article.
Why? Why are you pushing so hard on this topic? Why go so hard defending a rapist? Are you his public defender or something?
Let me save you some trouble. We don’t agree. End of story.
This is strategically dumbest move he can make. Taylor Swift has been relatively quite for a while now regarding politics and now either she or her publicist is basically forced to respond to this. My best guess is Trump is trying to stir the pot to get any kind of attention but this isn’t it.
Republicans have already blamed (credited?) Taylor Swift for election losses, simply because she told people to vote. Not for telling people vote for/against any particular issue, candidate, or office. Just to go vote.
She has immense power, but that power may not be easy to control.
I can’t imagine most of the Swifties are already old enough to vote? Aren’t they like 8-16 mostly, with a couple of “young at heart” 20-somethings strewn in? No idea if I’m totally off here, I don’t know much pop culture.
You’re totally off. Remember she’s been producing hits for about 20 years. So that teenage demographic has grown up, she continually gets the younger demo, but they never seem to leave. My wife and all her friends, at 35, are a bunch of die hard swifties. Her reach is immense
I’m really glad this is getting proper media attention. This has been going on for a while and I haven’t seen much outside of small blips in Canadian media until now.
Investigate Journalists still exist, they are just bloggers who tell us to do our own research.
It sucks. I’d much rather the nameless investigative journalist have the reputation of an established (and importantly, trusted) press agency standing behind them.
Investigative journalism, nowadays, is useless unless it comes from a highly trusted individual, or with the backing of a trusted entity. And that’s not what we have these days. We have borderline propaganda produced by idiots who have no concept of context and barely any real understanding of the topic they are trying to convey in the first place.
Oh, and Opinion columns presented as fact. We have those too.
“This sentence is the epitome of injustice and a dangerous nod to child sexual predators letting them know, ‘No worries, we won’t go too hard on you,’”
This seems like its missing a pretty obvious point. Its not that the judge is going easy on a child rapist. The judge is going easy on a cop, who just so happens to also be a fucking child rapist. This cop, and the judge both deserve to be in jail for the rest of their lives.
Good first step is just seeding clover where grass is struggling.
Clover isn’t a normal part of lawns anymore because broadleaf herbicide kills clover too. But there is zero reason to use herbicide on a fucking lawn anyways.
But you barely need to mow clover if it’s dominant in an area. It “learns” the height you mow at, and just stops growing taller than that.
Like a 1/4 of my backyard only gets mowed once or twice a season, and it looks green as fuck because it’s denser. That ground covers helps retain moisture in the ground, feeds bees and bunnies, and with all the bunnies, I even get foxes.
Plus clover produces nitrogen, so it naturally spreads to the poor soil and improves it because it can out compete grass and even weeds. Insisting on an “all grass, only grass” lawn is some boomer shit.
We’ve already done our whole front yard in native plants, but we still have grass in the back, which is struggling because we live in CO and Kentucky bluegrass was never meant to grow in a desert with clay soil. My mom finally said I can have most/all of it removed and plant a native grass mix with clover next year. I’m so happy.
Just start using that stuff for bare spots. Plants spread on their own bro, you just got to establish a population first. Maybe it’ll cross pollinate and you’ll get some crazy new bluegrass that’s hardy.
Right, there's nothing wrong with grass itself as a member of a diverse lawn, it's making it the only plant around that hurts everything else. Let the various species do a natural battle of survival and enjoy the eclectic results, as well as the wildlife it invites that you don't see on these "perfect" grass lawns.
Eh, it was already a victory getting my mom to agree to this at all. She wouldn’t be able to handle the “chaos” of it happening gradually. She’s extremely anxious about anything she perceives as messy (and that would definitely meet her criteria), and we have a non-profit here that removes lawns pretty inexpensively, so I’m taking my wins where I can get them and doing it in a way that won’t stress her out more.
This is something the wife and I have looked at doing for our next house but is clover less resilient to dogs than grass? We were figuring on natural stuff for the front yard but keeping grass in the majority of the backyard because of our pets
The spots that our dogs have destroyed clover, they had destroyed the grass anyway. And that’s under an old magnolia tree where everything struggles anyway. The rest of the back yard is fine.
Clover is better, it grows along the ground instead of straight up like grass So does a couple other kinds of broadleafs that will show up.
With grass if they dig in hard in one place it can kill the grass and then it’s bare, and likely going to stay that way for a while if you mow often. With clover the nearby strands just grow in to the empty space.
Like, if you got some huge dogs in a small yard that pace, it probably won’t matter. But just letting them run around in an open area you’ll be fine.
There will be bunnies back there tho. Even if you have a good fence, they’ll break in for the clover.
There will be bunnies back there tho. Even if you have a good fence, they’ll break in for the clover.
Yeah, it’s impossible to keep those little varmints out. Even with a solid fence, my small veggie patch is constantly being invaded by those bouncy thieves.
Our two dogs have been destroying the clover at the same rate of the grass but grows faster back. Just overseed any gap with clover when there are bald or low spots
I’ve let the clover from the easement behind our house take over most of our backyard. We’ve got 2 very rambunctious dogs, and the constant trails we’ve always had back there are gone…filled in by either clover or some more robust grass variety that handles it better (. It took a few years for them to fill in completely, but it was worth the wait to not have to try and overseed and pamper them every year.
Clover is so beneficial that pre-WW2, grass seed mixes almost always explicitly advertised clover content. If you look up 19th or early 20th century catalogs, etc, listings for grass seed will nearly always not only mention that they contain a clover mix, but tout its benefits.
As you note, it was only post-war with the creation of modern herbicides that clover stopped being the norm. There was more or less a DeBeers-style PR campaign to convince people that clover is a “weed” since it can’t survive weed killers.
The Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu Ting who was also DQed by the IBA with no evidence also won gold. Her coach thanked JK Rowling, saying “most people probably didn’t know or care about women’s boxing. Now the whole world knows Yu Ting and Taiwan and that she is a champion.”
The GOP openly accuses the left of being literal demons who sacrifice babies to Satan. J.D. Vance wrote the foreword for a book called Unhuman that, again, accuses democrats of literally being demons. We’re past the point of decorum.
According to the lawsuit, the Titan “dropped weights” about 90 minutes into its dive, indicating the team had aborted or attempted to abort the dive. “While the exact cause of failure may never be determined, experts agree that the Titan’s crew would have realized exactly what was happening,” the lawsuit states. “Common sense dictates that the crew were well aware they were going to die, before dying.”
Is there anything worse than knowing you’re going to die long before your time but powerless to stop it? Oh, knowing you took your kid out with you probably counts.
On behalf of the rest of the world, can I just say thank you to the democrats for getting themselves sorted out and getting into a state where they could beat the gibbering orange gibbon.
The most urgent foreign policy issue right now is the ongoing genocide of Palestinians. I would say that walz did not display “big dad energy” when he refused to meet with Palestinian families from his state to discuss possible solutions (he was willing to meet, but only to listen and “bear witness” to their stories. That was the extent of his support)
Axel Springer, the media company that is trying to sue Adblock in Germany saying that blocking ads infringes on their copyright? The Axel Springer that lost that suit, so now they’re re-filing again? That Axel Springer?
“Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise”
this has been a thing in writing since the 1980’s and we’ve enacted almost 75% of all the recommendations so far; it’s not the boogeyman that it’s made out to be in this election cycle.
then again; people who buy into this strawman also tend to minimize an active genocide as nothing more than a “single issue” vote so i guess you have to create something to get them to care.
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