Politics

[Altitude sickness]

I understand that allowing foreign students into U.S. college enrollment is a huge windfall of cash for that institution and the U.S. treasury.
But hopefully we are getting major concessions from China. And our intelligence agencies are brought into this discussion.
Trump being dismissive on the Laura Ingram show. That the U.S. can not produce engineering students like China can.

 

[PARA45]

I’d like to recognize @Red Leg @mdwest and @flying sailor on Veterans Day for their service. We can be angry due to government inefficiency in this thread 360 days a year, but we must recognize service, duty, and sacrifice in Veterans Day, Armed Services Day, and Memorial Day each year. I ask AH members to recognize any other veteran on this forum and honor them for doing the work that allows us to petition our government and redress grievances every day.


God bless the veteran, God bless the best of the USA.

It was a great honor to serve this wonderful nation that opens its door and heart to my family. I served in the greatest Air Force in the world, for a total of 34 years, 8 months and 28 days. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

 

[Brent in Az]

They were talking about giving dispatchers the power to decide whether or not to send a cop or a social worker

Sending out social workers to deal with a crackhead beating up his girlfriend will certainly end well

 

[mdwest]

Sending out social workers to deal with a crackhead beating up his girlfriend will certainly end well

The entire concept is flawed beyond belief…

Large police agencies already have this capability… they have CIT (crisis intervention training) programs where specially selected officers go through fairly intensive training, largely delivered by counselors and psychologists, where they are taught how to deal with the very thing Mandami wants social workers and counselors to deal with..

NYC already has just over 8200 CIT certified police officers…

So now, rather than sending in someone trained as both a police officer and in crisis intervention… a guy we’ve invested tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in training on…

We’ll just call the local social workers offices and pay those guys $150 an hour to come handle the problem we’ve already specifically trained 8200 people to handle…

Just proves that candidates talk about shit they know nothing about.. and voters believe candidate bullshit because they are too lazy to find the truth themselves…

 

[PARA45]

This is so true!

 

[Aaron N]

Sending out social workers to deal with a crackhead beating up his girlfriend will certainly end well

About as well as sending out a cop to do a health check on someone with mental problems. Different tools for different situations. No one expects a social worker to roll in and stop a bank heist, and not every call needs a cop. Some calls might need one of each.

 

[mdwest]

About as well as sending out a cop to do a health check on someone with mental problems. Different tools for different situations. No one expects a social worker to roll in and stop a bank heist, and not every call needs a cop. Some calls might need one of each.

Read my prior post.

Large agencies, including NYC, have since the early 90’s, been specially selecting officers to go through intensive training programs that are specifically designed (by crisis counselors, physicians, social workers, etc… most programs are overseen by the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law) to deal with mental health issues, addiction issues, etc…

Dispatch already has the ability to send a CIT team to answer a call… and patrol officers already have the ability to call CIT to a scene if they think the situation warrants it… NYC specifically has 8200 CIT qualified officers on staff..

No agency should ever send someone in to deal with mental health issues that are criminal in nature (911 called because the person is a threat to himself or others or is in the process of committing a crime) without law enforcement present. Doing that puts everyone involved and others in the general vicinity at risk..

Dispatch doesn’t just have patrol officers on tap when a 911 called is made… they have every unit within the police force, the fire department, social services, animal control, the coroner, child protective services, etc.. etc

Unless it is an obvious fire or rescue specific call, they will almost always send a patrol unit first to ensure that the scene is safe prior to sending anyone else in…

The patrol officer will then determine if he needs a dog catcher, a paramedic, a swat team, child social services, CIT, or whatever else might be necessary to solve whatever the problem at hand is..

That process won’t change.. when dispatch gets a 911 call stating some crazy guy is getting ready to jump off a bridge they will send patrol first to secure the scene and assess what is really going on… anything else would put HUGE liability on the city…

Once they get there the patrol officers are going to assess things and call CIT and request back up patrol to help contain things…

All Mandami is saying he’s going to do is trade one person already trained to deal with mental health issues for another person trained to deal with mental health issues..

His case is nothing more than a red herring…

 

[steve white]

View attachment 726256
From elk camp. Thought you might like.

Could't see a thing over Dallas...

 

[Brent in Az]

About as well as sending out a cop to do a health check on someone with mental problems. Different tools for different situations. No one expects a social worker to roll in and stop a bank heist, and not every call needs a cop. Some calls might need one of each.

It's now a Mamdani city. Just wait for the madness to commence.
They'll send in the social workers to the bank heist to give the robber a big hug & emotional support.

 

[Red Leg]

It's now a Mamdani city. Just wait for the madness to commence.
They'll send in the social workers to the bank heist to give the robber a big hug & emotional support.

Almost unfortunately, the mechanisms of city government will continue to function under sheer momentum for quite sometime. It will be three of four years from now before citizens start to look back and ask what happened.

 

[mdwest]

You completely misunderstood my post. What I meant was the American military presence in Europe. The Americans have become an unreliable ally. This is the worst Europe need. They better go, as soon as possible. Europe has to defence itself.

HWL

Assuming most Europeans agree with you, why hasn’t Germany told the US to pack up and leave yet? (FWIW I think Poland and a few other countries would love for Germany to do that.. they’d welcome the economic advantages of a US military installation on their soil… they’d welcome additional defense advantage would simply be icing on the cake)…

If the other NATO nations don’t find value in their partnership with the US, why not simply form a new alliance that doesn’t include the US…

Last I checked the Brits love the F15 and F35 squadrons at Lakenheath… they bring a ton of money to the region, and the joint training they do with the RAF has been invaluable to them…

The Poles seem pretty happy about Camp Kosciuszko… you might recall that US V Corps HQ was in Germany until 2013… we moved it to Poland in 2020… the economy around Poznan appears to be doing well with the influx of senior US military officers and support personnel as well as the increased number of troops now coming to Poland to train, etc..

The Italians appear to love the US 173rd Airborne being in Vicenza.. and they absolutely love the US 6th Fleet being based in Naples…

So maybe the problem is a German one rather than a European one? And maybe your linear view of the value being only in defense and forgetting about all of the economic and other political advantages that come with the bases isn’t all that well thought out..

I wonder what Kaiserslautern would look like in 5 years if Ramstein Air Base left tomorrow and how many Germans within about a 30 mile radius would feel about it after the local economy collapsed.. 6200 Germans are employed by the base and 54,000 Germans are employed by companies that support the base..

 

[Brent in Az]

Almost unfortunately, the mechanisms of city government will continue to function under sheer momentum for quite sometime. It will be three of four years from now before citizens start to look back and ask what happened.

It's much easier to create a mess vs.trying to fix it. By then the damage will be done

 

[Aaron N]

Read my prior post.

Large agencies, including NYC, have since the early 90’s, been specially selecting officers to go through intensive training programs that are specifically designed (by crisis counselors, physicians, social workers, etc… most programs are overseen by the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law) to deal with mental health issues, addiction issues, etc…

Dispatch already has the ability to send a CIT team to answer a call… and patrol officers already have the ability to call CIT to a scene if they think the situation warrants it… NYC specifically has 8200 CIT qualified officers on staff..

No agency should ever send someone in to deal with mental health issues that are criminal in nature (911 called because the person is a threat to himself or others or is in the process of committing a crime) without law enforcement present. Doing that puts everyone involved and others in the general vicinity at risk..

Dispatch doesn’t just have patrol officers on tap when a 911 called is made… they have every unit within the police force, the fire department, social services, animal control, the coroner, child protective services, etc.. etc

Unless it is an obvious fire or rescue specific call, they will almost always send a patrol unit first to ensure that the scene is safe prior to sending anyone else in…

The patrol officer will then determine if he needs a dog catcher, a paramedic, a swat team, child social services, CIT, or whatever else might be necessary to solve whatever the problem at hand is..

That process won’t change.. when dispatch gets a 911 call stating some crazy guy is getting ready to jump off a bridge they will send patrol first to secure the scene and assess what is really going on… anything else would put HUGE liability on the city…

Once they get there the patrol officers are going to assess things and call CIT and request back up patrol to help contain things…

All Mandami is saying he’s going to do is trade one person already trained to deal with mental health issues for another person trained to deal with mental health issues..

His case is nothing more than a red herring…

But as per the rage bait meme, the NYPD will not be replaced by social workers.

I get that there are already officers on the books trained to handle these situations, but wouldn’t freeing up policing resources to be deployed elsewhere be seen as a win? In my business, if I can send a single skill individual to handle a problem on they’re wheelhouse and save a multi-skilled guy for whatever else comes up, I 100% will.

 

[mdwest]

But as per the rage bait meme, the NYPD will not be replaced by social workers.

I get that there are already officers on the books trained to handle these situations, but wouldn’t freeing up policing resources to be deployed elsewhere be seen as a win? In my business, if I can send a single skill individual to handle a problem on they’re wheelhouse and save a multi-skilled guy for whatever else comes up, I 100% will.

The difference is NYPD already has the sunk cost associated with CIT… the bill has already been paid and 8200 people are already readily available to do the task…

If you’ve already paid for a multi skilled guy to have the capacity to do a job… and you don’t have the budget to hire a single skill guy and keep the multi skilled guy on the books at the same time… you 100% will not hire the single skill guy to replace the multi skilled guy… you’ll lose capacity..

NYC projects a $12.7b deficit by the start of 2027. Their future projections show that deficit increasing over the next several years as they became reliant on federal pandemic subsidies that run out in 2026…

NYC public services are currently running on the smallest manning numbers in 30 years… they lack the funding and they lack the recruiting to bring new people into city jobs…

But they should just dump a program they’ve already paid for (that most consider to be successful) and buy into something new? Even though they don’t have the money to pay for even their most basic needs already… and projections show that the money situation is getting worse, not better, over the coming years?

Mandami is a DJ with a degree in African Studies… he knows nothing about managing a business, much less managing a city… he’s surrounded himself with activists rather than city planners, finance people, economists, and city administrators with successful track records… he’s charismatic… which has allowed him to sell a bill of goods to the citizens of NY that he can’t deliver… or in many cases are simply bad ideas that will harm rather than help the city…

I’m not a doom and gloom sort of guy… I believe in the resilience of the American people.. I don’t think NYC is going to turn into a ghost town overnight or that we’ll be looking for Snake Pliskin characters to save us in Escape from New York…

But.. I do think NYC is about to do some suffering… the fire commissioner has already resigned… other senior officials won’t be far behind… if Mandami maintains his course, the people he replaces them with won’t be qualified or will be among the radical left socially and fiscally… those types of political appointments is what gets you a Portland or Minneapolis… and will take decades to recover from…

 

[deewayne2003]

But as per the rage bait meme, the NYPD will not be replaced by social workers.

I get that there are already officers on the books trained to handle these situations, but wouldn’t freeing up policing resources to be deployed elsewhere be seen as a win? In my business, if I can send a single skill individual to handle a problem on they’re wheelhouse and save a multi-skilled guy for whatever else comes up, I 100% will.

What happens when the single trained counselor who is unarmed gets stabbed/shot.....you have another victim and the police have to respond anyway.

I see these counselors as more make work policies to swell the ranks of local bureaucracy.

Just like the "safety ambassadors" they started in various blue cities that have been video taped standing around and watching crimes happen.

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

It's much easier to create a mess vs.trying to fix it. By then the damage will be done

NYC residents voted for this sh1t cake, let them eat it.

 

[Scott CWO]

Could't see a thing over Dallas...

It was brilliant here. The picture is on my IG which is elimmiator

 

[Tanks]

In my business, if I can send a single skill individual to handle a problem on they’re wheelhouse and save a multi-skilled guy for whatever else comes up, I 100% will.

The problem is that in a lot of cases the problem is not black and white. A guy having mental issues might decide to grab a knife and attack etc., etc..

 

[jeanes]

This whole thing reminds me of the movie "Demolition Man" and the way they tried to deal with Wesley Snipes' character.

 

[mdwest]

The problem is that in a lot of cases the problem is not black and white. A guy having mental issues might decide to grab a knife and attack etc., etc..

Having worked A LOT of mental health calls, I can tell you that this is 100% spot on..

When people (family member or otherwise) are having issues with another person that has mental health problems.. if the person isnt violent and/or isnt a threat, they typically dont call 911.. they either try to sit down with the person themselves (not always a bright idea).. or they will call a homeless shelter.. or they will call a mental health clinic, etc (whatever they think is appropriate)..

the overwhelming majority of mental health calls to 911 are tied to someone with mental health issues being violent or otherwise conducting a criminal act (more often than not it is an extreme case of "disturbing the peace")..

An example I can give from when I was on the streets.. we had a homeless guy named "Eddie" that hung around in the ward that I typically worked..

Eddie had a bicycle that he rode around town on... most of the time he'd just rummage through dumpsters looking for "treasures".. at any given time he'd have 30-40lbs of random stuff slung all over his bike.. he was pretty well known to everyone in the area.. and generally harmless.. the people at the Flying J truck stop would usually feed him a couple of times a day.. and he'd for the most part keep to himself..

But about once a week or so you'd find him on the corner of 7th and Broadway at the edge of a gas station parking lot (always the same spot for some reason), absolutely raising hell.. ranting and raving at every passing car... running customers off from the gas station.. etc.. so the gas station would call the police and have someone come out to run Eddie off..

The problem was Eddie was as strong as a bull... and Eddie ALWAYS had multiple knives among his "treasures"... and Eddie NEVER would agree to go to a shelter or to allow a mental health professional work with him, etc.. AND.. Eddie didnt mind going to jail.. he was perfectly cool with getting a warm bed and a few meals until his arraignment, where the judge would rescind him to custodial care, where he'd never show up, etc..etc.. (the system is a failure pretty much from end to end).. and he'd be back out riding his bike searching for treasure in 48 hours.. (without exaggerating this happened at least a couple of dozen times while I worked the area.. Im sure its happened hundreds of times over all the years)...

90% of the time you could roll up, get out of the car, etc.. Eddie would yell at you and keep hell raising.. you'd try to talk and reason with him for a few minutes and size the situation up.. and one of two things would happen... either Eddie wanted a bed and a meal.. so he would purposefully start a fight with you, often brandishing something like a knife or a hammer, etc.. which would get you to pepper spray him (we didnt have tasers at the time)... or.. he didnt really need a meal (Flying J had just fed him).. so he'd move on... he had no interest in talking with you.. and if you forced it, the fight would occur...

I dont care how good a social worker or mental health counselor you are... Eddie was not a case for you to deal with in the street...

and Eddie is exemplar of the overwhelming majority of mental health calls that cops respond to..

We had another "frequent flyer" mental health guy in the ward.. a HUGE guy.. probably 6'6", 290lbs.. that was in his mid 20's, but had the mental capacity of a 3 year old.. and like a 3 year old, he'd occasionally throw temper tantrums... the problem is you can control a 3 year old during a tantrum... controlling a 290 lb 3 year old however is another issue all together..

He lived at home with his mother and two sisters.. they were able to keep him under control most of the time.. but at least a couple of times a year we ended up getting called to the house because he was breaking things, physically threatening his sisters, etc..

At one point we literally had to bring the SWAT team to the house (I was on SWAT at the time)... he had armed himself with a piece of rebar that was about 3' long, had busted out a couple of windows in the house, was bleeding pretty badly, and wouldnt let his sisters leave (mom wasnt there at the time.. I cant remember why)... we ended up having to shoot him with a couple of "rubber rockets" after hitting the house with multiple canisters of CS just to take him into custody.. and it took the entire 6 man stack dog piling him to get him to the ground to be able to restrain him to begin with..

And.. once again.. just a few days later the courts released him.. didnt put him into a mental health institution.. just let him go back home to his moms place.. etc..etc..

again, not a call you send a social worker to for resolution..

I could go on and on and on about suicide threats, suicide by cop attempts, etc..etc.. and give a hundred reasons why making the decision to send a "counselor" of any type in first is a VERY bad decision..

I always find it interesting how guys that have never worked the streets in a major metro area (in any capacity.. garbage worker, cop, fire fighter, ambulance driver, dog catcher, etc.. doesnt matter.. just be a guy on the streets that knows and understand how things work, and why they work (or dont work) the way they do... think they have a better solution....

Things are far from perfect.. and there are things about the direction American law enforcement is moving that concern me (its becoming way to militarized in my opinion for example).. but... thousands of career police administrators, backed by tens of thousands of other experts across a variety of fields, combined with the courts, the hospitals, etc.. have created a system that for the most part works...

But we think a DJ has a better idea and can "fix" a problem as complex as mental health calls to police departments....

Who exactly is advising him would be my question? Or is he getting any advice from anyone that actually knows anything at all?