REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Suddenly on the other side...and it aint pretty.

POSTED BY: HERO
UPDATED: Friday, March 4, 2011 03:07
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 2151
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Wednesday, March 2, 2011 5:57 AM

HERO


I'm a public employee, an appointee, not a union person. I voted Republican and believe in curtailing public unions and ending collective bargaining. So that put me squarely on the "right" side of this issue.

Here in Ohio we have our versions of the 'Screw the Unions Act' in the form of Senate Bill 5. Unions hate it, local and state budget hawks like me love it...except this morning they amended it. The new amendment limits all public employees to 10 sick days per year (we currently get 4.6 hours per cycle...which comes our to 15 days). We will now be required to kick in 20% towards our health care (currently 0% and we went without raises and added furlough days to keep it that way). No opt/out provision for health care or option to take the 80% govt pays and go find a more affordable plan, and no corresponding pay increase. We are now limited to 5 weeks vacation no matter how long we've been working (I only get 3 now, but I know some cops and firemen who've gotten to 6 weeks).

So I find myself on the other side of the fence, not because my position has changed...somebody moved the fence.

Shame, we've worked so hard to keep our City on sound financial ground through the recession and the other problems in NE Ohio. Most cities went under, we saw it coming and started our cuts in 2006. We got our unions to compromise. Now after all that hard work making ends meet we're being lumped into the same sinking boat with Cities that were crushed by debt the last two years.

Well, anyway I guess I'm on the left side now. So how does this work? Do I have to make my own sign? Where do I get my fake doctor's notes? Do I have to chant...because I really don't think this is what democracy looks like?

H

"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
"I would rather not ignore your contributions." Niki2, 2010.

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Wednesday, March 2, 2011 6:27 AM

BLUEHANDEDMENACE


This one was enuf to bring me out of lurk.

What you have just experienced Hero, is the curtain being lifted from your eyes.

The conservatives out there dont give a fuck about you. Unless you are contributing 7 figures to their reelections, you are not someone whose interests and well being they will ever consider, or value.

Assuming you have been voting Republican, you have been fooled into voting away your own freedoms, and voting against your own economic interest.

You are hardly alone, well over a hundred million people have been fooled the same way.

You make a reasoned argument about your community's fiscal discipline, and that you have a reasonable expectation that the sacrifices you have agreed to would be enough to feed the beast, and that they wouldn't come after you harder.

What you don't realize is this has nothing to do with the bottom line. This is all about the conservative movement capitilzing on the economic fear of our country to push through an agenda they have had for decades.

Its very similar to GW and Wolfowitz and those scumbags using 911 to invade Iraq.

Its never about what best for the country, its always about what will the country let them get away with.

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Wednesday, March 2, 2011 6:30 AM

BLUEHANDEDMENACE


They didn't move the fence on you.

That was a fake fence, you just got a glimpse of how far off the real one is.

As to being on this side, it means you actually need to have solid facts for your arguments, lest the trolls burn them down.

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Wednesday, March 2, 2011 6:51 AM

HERO


Quote:

Originally posted by BlueHandedMenace:
They didn't move the fence on you.

That was a fake fence, you just got a glimpse of how far off the real one is.


I disagree. My position has not changed. I still believe that public unions should not have collective bargaining rights. This is because they have the ability to influence elections by voting which creates a conflict of interest.

If unions elect the Mayor and unions bargain for their rights then there is no adversarial process in contract bargaining since they are in effect represented by both labor and management. This leads to the pensions and benefits and salaries that are more then they'd get in comparable private positions.

In my case, however, I did not benefit from collective bargaining. The City sets my salary and my benefits based on what it can afford and what the City Council feels is reasonable for my services. I do not think its right for the state to interfere with the process by setting artificial ceilings. Rather they should act to set minimum standards to preserve the wages and benefits of all workers at a fair level upon which City administrations can build.

The fact is I could make more money as a private attorney and there are many professionals such as myself working in City administration. By setting these artificial ceilings the State is limiting the City's ability to compete with the private sector for experianced and effective workers. Let the City budgets and local leaders make the decision about going with someone with the skills and experiance they need versus what can they afford to pay.

H

"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
"I would rather not ignore your contributions." Niki2, 2010.

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Wednesday, March 2, 2011 7:11 AM

BLUEHANDEDMENACE


I dont disagree really with anything u r saying on a fundamental level.

I was not saying that your position has changed.

What has chnged is where u sit in relation to what your party believes.

On a separate but related note, it has baffled me for decades why good, decent, middle class and lower people vote rebuplican. Theres nothing in the conservative platform for them, so why do they do it?

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Wednesday, March 2, 2011 7:20 AM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT


Quote:

Originally posted by Hero:

The fact is I could make more money as a private attorney,



If you aren't doing that, why not? If this change is going to cause you a financial hardship, logic suggests that that is what you should have been doing.

Maybe because you love the POWER, because you enjoy being a corporal in the army of the fascist oppressors?

You have just been rewarded for your loyalty.

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Wednesday, March 2, 2011 7:33 AM

CANTTAKESKY


Quote:

Originally posted by Hero:
So I find myself on the other side of the fence, not because my position has changed...somebody moved the fence.



From a libertarian perspective, this "fence" problem underscores the caution we have towards govt.

Govt has a bad, bad habit of moving fences. It's what they do.

As Frem says, one day the fence is between you kids in school. The next day, they've moved the fence; now it is between you and kids in school PLUS travelers in airports. Tomorrow, the fence will be moved to include people going to stadiums. One day, you find yourself on the other side of the fence almost all the time.

The ultimate problem is not really the moving of the fence. It is having a fence at all to move.






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Wednesday, March 2, 2011 9:26 AM

FREMDFIRMA


So you were okay with it as long as it was happening to somebody else, but when it comes home to visit you, not so much.

Welcome to the world of be-careful-what-you-wish-for.

Remember my commentary about how the worst possible thing you do to someone is give them what they want ?

Well, you wanted this, you voted for it - and now that you have to face the consequences, the responsibility, own the results of your own decisions, suddenly you don't want it anymore ?

Well, much as I am inherently hostile to you, I might have been okay with that, save for the fact that you STILL want it for everyone else, just not YOU - which means I will neither support nor aid you in any way, sorry.

Injustice anywhere threatens Justice everywhere, but of course, what know YOU of the J-word, given your whole job is to make sure it never happens.

-Frem

ETA: THIS
Quote:

Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
You have just been rewarded for your loyalty.


I. Told. You. So.

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Wednesday, March 2, 2011 9:30 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Leaving aside collective bargaining, on which topic I am still undecided:
Quote:

On a separate but related note, it has baffled me for decades why good, decent, middle class and lower people vote rebuplican. Theres nothing in the conservative platform for them, so why do they do it?
Boy, Blue, did you nail it! Your first post, I was sitting here nodding and thinking “yes, yes, that’s the truth!”, and everything you said is what I’ve been posting for a while--especially as to
Quote:

This is all about the conservative movement capitilzing on the economic fear of our country to push through an agenda they have had for decades.
Same for Social Security, Medicare and any number of other things. It’s always baffled me, too. To see how what should be at least semi-intelligent people buy into the propaganda and vote against their own interests has astounded and appalled me ever since I figured it out. Means to me how DAMNED good the Repubs have been at crafting their message and getting it out; seems to work most every time. But why people don’t THINK about it has always amazed me.

Mark Morford put it exactly for me:
Quote:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is an obstreperous dimestore shill for billionaire right-wing energy barons who despise your very existence
along with the fact that his move, I believe, is a trial balloon that was planned before the 2010 midterms and, as is obvious, other Republican governors are waiting to see how it goes, then will line up and do the same if it flies. My only prayer is that it doesn't fly.

Seems to me like the right pulled a goodie; rather than focusing AS MUCH on federal legislators, they got governors elected who will push their agenda state by state. Good planning, but terrifying to one of the lower middle class!

I'm glad you've seen the light...now, as has been suggested, I hope you look at it even more closely and see what's really going on.


Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off



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Wednesday, March 2, 2011 10:50 AM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


I'm not sure how things work in the US, but it seems to me that it would be an intrusion into ones liberty to prevent collective bargaining. If I and a group of other employees want to get together to bargain as an entity because we believe it gives us more bargaining power (and it certainly does), then why should there be a statute that prevents that? I don't agree with mandatory unionism, but you can still have collective bargaining. I'm currently in the middle of it right now. The union is involved but doesn't represent everyone, but everyone will reap the benefits (hopefully there will be benefits) of a negotiated agreement, even if they opt out for a private agreement because under law the conditions cannot be worse that the collective one.

Individual bargaining for your contract only works in your favour if you have a skill that is more in demand than available. That's why people unionised in the first place, to give them collective strength when their skills were not enough. Without collective bargaining and unions, you wouldn't have the sick pay in the first place, Hero. You wouldn't have any of your benefits, that someone somewhere fought hard for. I agree that you have had a curtain over your eyes and have not understood the nature of the employer/employee relationship with all of its inherent power inbalances.

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Wednesday, March 2, 2011 11:00 AM

LILI

Doing it backwards. Walking up the downslide.


Quote:

Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
So you were okay with it as long as it was happening to somebody else, but when it comes home to visit you, not so much.


Thank you, Frem. I was trying to think of exactly how to respond to such an attitude, and you nailed it for me.

It's very, very simple. If you don't want to lose your rights, rights fought for by organized workers and unions, then you need to stop trying to undermine them.


Facts are stubborn things.

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Wednesday, March 2, 2011 11:10 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Magons and Lili; you speak for me. I guess it's mandatory membership I'm on the fence about; I misspoke when I said it was collective bargaining. THAT I'm totally in favor of.


Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off



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Wednesday, March 2, 2011 11:20 AM

DREAMTROVE


Hero,

This is just the start. You still have it relatively cushy even for a public employee. My sister worked 12 years with never more than 10 days off per year for veterans affairs.

Nothing personal, I think it's good that you're noticing that everything is not as it should be, and you know this is coming from a solid free market perspective when it's coming from me. That said, it's curious to me that those for whom things are pretty good squeal when things start to get bad, I suspect that it's that they just haven't noticed how bad things are for everyone else. I only ever had one job with health benefits, and that was a cushy teaching job. I got screwed out of that job because I was under someone who was very disabled. He retired, so I was cancelled, even though I was contracted with the aid to the disabled dept. and there was an english professor who wanted me as his assistant. The nature of the job being to be the professor for everything the professor couldn't do himself, like grade papers, make up tests, etc., under his direction.

But most of the jobs I've had have had no vacation, and no benefits, and no weekends. A common set was 10 days on, 1 day off, but not all jobs had that. Some where 16/7. 16 hours, seven days a week, no breaks. And this is the USA.

In a free market, the total economic value of a society should be balanced on its total productivity, but the total labor should be rewarded, economically, by the amount put in, and that there should be a decent amount of freedom of choice in how much time you want to put in.

One job I took home nothing but stock options for two years, and then the options became worthless. My sister in law did this for five year. It's a big lure, the options, because you hear about all these "we went public" instant millionaires. No one tells you that this can also be used for de facto slave labor.

It's really tricky out there. That's why I'm my own boss now. But that said, I still have problems to deal with, and am trying to deal with one of them right now.

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Wednesday, March 2, 2011 4:19 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht


Well said Lili.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Wednesday, March 2, 2011 4:52 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Quote:

Originally posted by Hero:
Quote:

Originally posted by BlueHandedMenace:
They didn't move the fence on you.

That was a fake fence, you just got a glimpse of how far off the real one is.


I disagree. My position has not changed. I still believe that public unions should not have collective bargaining rights. This is because they have the ability to influence elections by voting which creates a conflict of interest.



Oddly, you argue that corporations SHOULD be able to influence elections by spending all the money they want. And curiously, you don't see ANY conflict of interest in them giving campaign cash to people who will be voting on things that will directly impact those same corporations. Hell, they're even allowed to give money directly to Supreme Court Justices - or at least to their wives!

Quote:


If unions elect the Mayor and unions bargain for their rights then there is no adversarial process in contract bargaining since they are in effect represented by both labor and management. This leads to the pensions and benefits and salaries that are more then they'd get in comparable private positions.



Can you show me one election where "the union" registered to vote, and where "the union" singlehandedly chose the winner of the election?

Quote:


In my case, however, I did not benefit from collective bargaining. The City sets my salary and my benefits based on what it can afford and what the City Council feels is reasonable for my services. I do not think its right for the state to interfere with the process by setting artificial ceilings. Rather they should act to set minimum standards to preserve the wages and benefits of all workers at a fair level upon which City administrations can build.



You mean you don't PARTICIPATE in collective bargaining. To say you don't benefit from it is disingenuous. That's like saying that non-union Toyota employees don't benefit from the advances the UAW has made for its members. Of course the non-members benefit! Toyota, in an effort to keep the unions out, pays highly competitive wages and benefits commensurate with many union shops, so their workers definitely benefit. As do you.

Quote:


The fact is I could make more money as a private attorney and there are many professionals such as myself working in City administration.



According to the right-wing talking points, all public-sector workers are getting rich on the taxpayers' teat. It's ludicrous to think you could make more in the private sector, because every pundit on FauxNews insists that public-sector employees get paid FAR MORE than their private-sector counterparts. You have no idea how good you've got it, obviously.

Quote:

By setting these artificial ceilings the State is limiting the City's ability to compete with the private sector for experianced and effective workers. Let the City budgets and local leaders make the decision about going with someone with the skills and experiance they need versus what can they afford to pay.


So that's why the GOP can't get any good legislators! They don't believe in paying public-sector employees what they're worth, so they get worthless employees!


"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Wednesday, March 2, 2011 5:09 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Quote:

Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
So you were okay with it as long as it was happening to somebody else, but when it comes home to visit you, not so much.

Welcome to the world of be-careful-what-you-wish-for.

Remember my commentary about how the worst possible thing you do to someone is give them what they want ?

Well, you wanted this, you voted for it - and now that you have to face the consequences, the responsibility, own the results of your own decisions, suddenly you don't want it anymore ?

Well, much as I am inherently hostile to you, I might have been okay with that, save for the fact that you STILL want it for everyone else, just not YOU - which means I will neither support nor aid you in any way, sorry.

Injustice anywhere threatens Justice everywhere, but of course, what know YOU of the J-word, given your whole job is to make sure it never happens.

-Frem

ETA: THIS
Quote:

Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
You have just been rewarded for your loyalty.


I. Told. You. So.




Okay, once I saw what "Hero" posted, I knew what was coming, and had the sense to set my coffee aside this time, so as not to do a spit-take all over my computer.

And reading Frem's response, I am very glad of that decision.

He's 100% right, of course. You're all about shabby treatment of "underlings", "Hero" - until you come to the stark and shocking realization that you too have a boss, and that boss is in a mood to give some shabby treatment to HIS "underlings". Shit always rolls downhill; you just never realized that you're living in the valley with the rest of us.

I should feel sorry for you, "Hero"? If you're so upset, why don't you quit sucking off the public tit and go out and get a real job? It would be hilarious to see you actually have to work for a living, if anyone would hire you, that is.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Wednesday, March 2, 2011 5:14 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Quote:

Originally posted by Niki2:
Magons and Lili; you speak for me. I guess it's mandatory membership I'm on the fence about; I misspoke when I said it was collective bargaining. THAT I'm totally in favor of.




Pretty much where I come down. On the one hand, you shouldn't be FORCED to join a union, any union. On the other hand, it shouldn't be ILLEGAL for you to join one. Want in? Pay your dues. Want out? Stop paying your dues.

It would also be neat if gyms and tanning salons worked this way. :)

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Wednesday, March 2, 2011 5:31 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht


Hero, this is giving you an oppertunity to revise your opinion, its a bummer that this happened to you, but its one of those things, I guess the question is what will you do with it?

And I do believe that lawyers who work the public lawyer jobs are important, they are the ones who represent the people who can't afford to pay the private lawyers fees are they not?

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Thursday, March 3, 2011 3:46 AM

HERO


Quote:

Originally posted by RionaEire:
And I do believe that lawyers who work the public lawyer jobs are important, they are the ones who represent the people who can't afford to pay the private lawyers fees are they not?


You are talking about Public Defenders and Court Appointed lawyers. PD's are public employees and generally make very little doing it. Court Appointed lawyers (for felony cases) are private attorneys who are paid a flat per-hour fee. The fee is not big, but the work is steady so during the economic downturn many private attorneys are happy to be on the list to add a couple appointments/month to their bottom line.

My City employs six attorneys. We represent the State of Ohio, the City, and the people. Three of us are prosecutors, the other three are Civil attorneys (including our Law Director). Lawyers from our office manage a diverse practice from negotiating union contracts to prosecuting criminal cases. There is no govt function or interaction with the public that we do not influence. For example, I authorize and prosecute criminal cases, I sit on the Animal Appeals Board (if you get a vicious dog), I work with Utility Billing (I'm the reason my City wont shut off a deadbeat's heat in January), I work with the Zoning and Building Departments, last year a represented the Charter Review Commission, I'm currently drafting new ordinances making it illegal to discharge a laser in our City (use a laser, go to jail) and making it a crime to resell event tickets without a license, and I'm personally responsible for getting the lasers and radars updated in our Court so if you get a speeding ticket in my county...I expect a 'thank you' note.

H

"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
"I would rather not ignore your contributions." Niki2, 2010.

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Thursday, March 3, 2011 4:24 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Hero, sorry to hear of your plight. But in response, I can't possibly say it better than BlueHand
Quote:

What you have just experienced Hero, is the curtain being lifted from your eyes. The conservatives out there dont give a fuck about you. Unless you are contributing 7 figures to their reelections, you are not someone whose interests and well being they will ever consider, or value.... You make a reasoned argument about your community's fiscal discipline, and that you have a reasonable expectation that the sacrifices you have agreed to would be enough to feed the beast, and that they wouldn't come after you harder. What you don't realize is this has nothing to do with the bottom line. This is all about the conservative movement capitilzing on the economic fear of our country to push through an agenda they have had for decades.
I've been a public employee for quite a few decades, and I've know quite a few. In every case where operations have been privatized, it has turned out to be more costly, less efficient, and with poorer service than before, whether this has been hospital kitchen service or postal service or laboratory analysis.

It's NOT about fiscal restraint or efficiency, or anything like that. Sorry you had to experience it personally. What's that tagline...?

"It's not personal, it's just war".

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Thursday, March 3, 2011 6:28 AM

KANEMAN


I don't see a fence that moved. I think Hero is on the side of small local government control. Even more so than most state rights types. If his city can afford to pay him..let em. If it can't it can't. The state should have no say in Hero's towns finances anymore than the Fed's making me buy insurance. A basic philosophy, really. Governmental oppression sucks. Local is better. And unions muddy the waters. Not all localities are in the same financial shape...nor should they be.

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Thursday, March 3, 2011 10:53 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Mike, your long post was right on. Thank you.


Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off



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Thursday, March 3, 2011 11:28 AM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.


Quote:

The fact is I could make more money as a private attorney


And if you were private you'd have no idea about the real situation of public employees... I conjure you'd be one of the zealots on the other side of the fence.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Friday, March 4, 2011 3:07 AM

FREMDFIRMA


Speakin of Ohio, and Prosecutors...
Quote:

Why should he bother us ?
Maybe to take what you got, Maybe to work your nerves, Or maybe to just come back and skull-fuck you in your sleep.


-Pitch Black.



Bill Mason's office went after hundreds of people with little or no evidence
http://www.cleveland.com/rule-29/index.ssf/2010/11/bill_masons_office_
went_after.html


And shall we discuss perhaps the epidemic corruption in Cuyahoga County, perhaps ?
Or perhaps THIS little tidbit, yet another case of Jury Backlash against a legal system gone mad with power, aided and abetted by, well, people like you.

Jurors so upset about case brought against 19-year-old that they will give the defendant their jury pay
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/02/jurors_so_upset_about_case_bro
.html

Quote:

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Jurors are so convinced that a Cleveland teen should not have been charged with assaulting another teen that they've gone beyond acquitting him. A few are writing angry letters to police and intend to donate their jury pay to him.

At least three jurors plan to give the $100 they received to sit on the jury to defendant Demrick McCloud, 19, if McCloud earns a high school equivalency degree. They took only 30 minutes to find him not guilty in their deliberations Friday. The trial started Jan. 31.

"It won't be a lot of money," said juror Ana Boe. "It's just a little carrot that goes to his future."

McCloud was charged with leading a gang of teens that beat a Martin Luther King Jr. High School student and threatened him with a gun Oct. 13 a little after 1 p.m. as the student walked home from the Shaker Square rapid station. McCloud had been in jail since that night awaiting trial.


Four MONTHS in jail.. for nothing, just for being handy when the cops wanted to hang it on somebody, and thanks to the complete and blatant disregard of the Eighth Amendment, specifically - Excessive bail shall not be required - in that "bail" is often set in multiples of the entire sum total of a persons assets, which is simply a cheap weasel around remanding someone when you have insufficient evidence to do it, and of course the system looks the other way...

Not to mention the professional dive-takers on the other side bent on making prosecutors look good rather than processing their cases, in hopes of performing enough abasement that they one day get to play with the stacked deck on the other side of the courtroom...

Yeah, go on and tell us how you'd do so well in the private sector - without all those extra edges and deck stacking, even if you did retain contacts and use those to your advantage, you'd find being "Suddenly on the other side..." of a courtroom even LESS pretty, when the other guy gets to lie through his teeth, submit false evidence and testimony, violate discovery with impunity, stack the jury, have improper or misleading jury instructions given - and stifle exculpatory evidence and testimony on a whim, as well as potentially silence you and/or your client when you call them on it.

You've recieved only the barest, slightest taste of what it's like for the rest of the world, and if you think you don't like the flavor now, maybe you should give an ounce of thought to the folks you're so keen on force-feeding it to, day in and day out.

One thing for sure, if you don't argue any better in court than you do here, the only thing even keeping you employed is the slanted rules, stacked deck, and complicity of both law enforcement and the judicial system - cause if I can chew you up and spit out the pieces so easily, my lawyer would swallow you whole.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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