Divemedic

I’m Not Buying This

Yesterday, Ray Epps was charged with disorderly conduct for entering a restricted area on the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6. He wasn’t arrested, nor did he see his house raided by a score of agents armed like a Marine heavy weapons platoon. Instead, they filed the charges in “anticipation of entry of a guilty plea.”

Less than 24 hours later, Epps pled guilty to the charge. The MSM is saying:

Michael Teter, an attorney representing Epps in the defamation case, said Epps’ plea agreement is “powerful evidence of the absurdity of Fox News’ and Tucker Carlson’s lies that sought to turn Ray into a scapegoat for January 6.”

This is Kabuki theater. They are charging Epps with a bullshit misdemeanor, for which he will not see a single day in jail. This is being done so they can discredit the critics of all of the J6 investigations. This story doesn’t change my mind, it actually makes me even more convinced that he is working with the Feds.

By Divemedic, ago

End Game

Democrats and the MSM (but I repeat myself) are worried about Biden’s ability to continue as President:

Biden, 80, has even since lamented aloud that he might be dead before his son’s case would be resolved, according to another source close to the Bidens. 

So how do they do this? There is no way that Kamala Harris can be President. She is an empty headed moron. They can’t kick her out of office, though. That would destroy the party that claims to be the friend of blacks. They need to replace Biden with someone who is more popular than he is, but who isn’t seen as taking away a black woman’s job.

Since we all know that the election is rigged, no Republican will win. It just isn’t going to happen. Trump will be in jail, and none of the other Republicans have the juice to overcome a Democrat fix.

The problem is that you have a few Democrat frontrunners for President, and selecting any of them to be President would cause power struggles in the party. The Democrats need to pick someone who won’t cause Democrat power struggles, and will also cement support from the all important non-partisan middle. Who can do that? The list is short at this point.

Taking all of the above into consideration, there are a few obvious choices.

A black woman who isn’t Oprah or Kamala Harris, who can unite the Party without pissing off the various factions.

Enter Big Mike.

Ted Cruz has said as much, just in the past couple of days:

“Here’s the scenario that I think is perhaps the most likely and most dangerous, “In August of 2024, the Democrat kingmakers jettison Joe Biden and parachute in Michelle Obama.”

“Michelle Obama – number one, you don’t infuriate African-American women which is a critical part of the constituency the Democrats are relying on to win. Number 2 – If you pick from any of the four, the other three are pissed. Because they’re all to some extent, peers, they’re rivals, all jabbing knives at each other. Michelle Obama because she was the first lady has the ability to parachute in above all four and say hey, we’re not picking among any of you.”

By Divemedic, ago

SERE training

We have talked about how you should never talk to the cops. In the video at the end of this post, a heroin addict who is under arrest because he was found near the scene of a robbery conducts a master class in applying this tactic:

  • Cop1: Reads Miranda Warning, and says “Do you understand your rights?”
  • Heroin Addict: Remains Silent
  • Cop 2: If you have something to show you didn’t do it, this is your time to talk
  • HA: Are you the good cop?
  • Cop 2: No, I’m the prick
  • HA: You look like a prick.
  • Cop 1: I’m not asking you to talk to me at this point. I just want to know if you understand your rights.
  • HA: Am I under arrest?
  • Cop1: Yes
  • HA: Then take me back to my cell, because I don’t talk to you motherfuckers.

They took him back to his cell, but questioned him again two hours later, and this time they brought him sodas. Still he didn’t talk.

  • Cop 1: Talk to me.
  • HA: You’re not my friend. You’re just trying to get some stupid ass confession from me.

The video talks about cops using the Reid technique. It is a trick used by cops, especially the FBI, to trick people into confessing. This technique is a form of psychological manipulation that is designed to trick people into agreeing to a set of facts that is a confession.

The best way to avoid this technique is not to say anything beyond:

  • Am I being detained?
  • Am I free to go?
  • I don’t wish to make a statement
  • I want to call my attorney, or I want to be provided with an attorney.

That’s it. I’m guessing that psychological games and manipulation are why the J6 supporters are being held in the deplorable conditions that they are. A person who has been denied nutrition, sleep, and social interaction is easier to manipulate. At this point, they are political prisoners or even POWs.

Anyhow, the video is below:

By Divemedic, ago

DIY Law Enforcement in 3, 2, 1…

In this case, an online predator has tricked a child into taking nude pictures of herself. The father understandably calls the cops, thinking that the cops would protect a child from an online predator. Instead, the cops arrived and threatened to arrest the child for producing child porn. Of course, they were going to do no such thing, because getting such a charge past prosecutors, a judge, and a jury is not going to happen. What this statement was really intended to do was send the message that the cops weren’t going to do anything.

In the old days before organized law enforcement, someone would molest a child or steal a horse, and the members of the community would form a posse, then ride out to find the criminal. The posse would often return without the criminal, but with the stolen object. The issue with this is that these vigilante law enforcers frequently got the wrong person.

Police departments were created to ensure that people accused of crimes receive a fair trial. The cops are nominally there to protect the right of the accused. At some point, they became corrupted into being the enforcers of government edicts, then morphed again into lazy cowards who are sucking at the public teat while doing as little as possible. Normally, it would make me happy that the cops weren’t out there arresting people on trumped up charges, or tossing grenades into baby cribs while searching for weed.

This isn’t the first time we have heard of children facing child porn charges for taking pictures of themselves. In 2015, a pair of children were charged as adults for producing child porn. The act that got them into the adult legal system? Taking nude pictures of children: themselves. So they were simultaneously adult criminals and juvenile victims. Twisted logic, to be sure.

This entire situation just sent a clear message to the father: his child is not going to be protected by the legal system that his is paying taxes to support. There is only one inescapable conclusion to this situation- the father is either going to have to do it himself, or he will have to let this go and accept the fact that his daughter is the sexual plaything of both a sexual predator and the cops who are supposed to arrest freaks like that. In my opinion, an appropriate response would be to duct tape the molester to a fence, cut his genitals off with a dull knife, then leave him there to bleed out.

The lesson that I take from this? A society that can’t protect its most vulnerable members (11 year old children) has already failed. Don’t call the cops. They are as useful as a football bat.

In a blog first, I offered to let my police readers do a guest post, defending this sort of behavior from the cops. I got exactly one response, and it appeared on this blog this morning. His issue was more with my made up on the spot number of 90% of cops being bad ones than any substantive disagreement with the behavior of cops. He was correct as far as that bit of hyperbole goes, but my main point remains- cops who allow this sort of behavior to exist without doing anything to put a stop to it are not good cops.

By Divemedic, ago

Guest Post: In Defense of cops

A few days ago, I posted a request that my cop readers send submissions as an “equal time” rebuttal of my disdain for modern police. I received exactly one response, that I enclose it below, without editing (other than to cut off the intro with the poster’s real name) there is no twisting of words here. Comments are open, but remember the blog rules on posting. Anyhow- this is his post, so no comments from me, other than to thank him for his submission.

Some of you might know me better from ‘The Bitter Centurion’ blog I formerly ran. I decided to take our generous host, Divemedic, up on his offer to submit a post regarding the good cop/bad cop issue – something I was obligated to do since it was me that prompted him to issue this ‘challenge’ of sorts and open the floor.

For those of you who don’t know or didn’t follow my blog prior, I was a law enforcement officer for just shy of 20 years. I worked with consummate professionals, but worked with some of the worst people I ever met. I helped people who needed it, but sometimes I watched the system fail. I share our host’s utter disdain for corrupt, cowardly, and incompetent law enforcement. In fact, I’d go so far as to assert that my feelings veer more towards sheer hatred for those who dishonour their oaths.

Where I took issue with the host’s stance is his assertion that ‘90% of cops out there are dishonest, corrupt, lazy, and gutless’. That’s a steep number. I’m led to wonder how he came to the conclusion that 90% of police officers fall within that category. Did he don a labcoat, safety goggles, and a clipboard and tabulate these results? Of course not. It’s a number he pulled out of his ass, quite probably because of the volume of mainstream media reports on police misconduct, which when combined with his own sour dealings with law enforcement, tempered his opinion on the matter. But…rather than argue the point, I’ll instead offer some food for thought:

Much of what we DO hear of police misconduct is through the mainstream media. But you’d have to be a moron to not know that the mainstream media is not the bastion of truth they want people to think. We know they’ve been dishonest about the scam-demic/COVID-19 fiasco, the gun violence issue, the conflict in Ukraine, as well as other conflicts abroad. We know that they’ve been dishonest and biased towards race, gender, and sexuality issues, and they’ve been dishonest about Trump, Biden, the Clintons, and a whole mess of other swamp rats. In short, the media exists to mold our opinions and sell us a narrative, not tell us the objective truth.

So, is it any different when it comes to their reporting on law enforcement? Why would anyone, keeping in mind everything else the media has been dishonest about, expect them to be on the level when it comes to reporting on the police? Have you ever stopped to think that all this bad press is being done to deliberately discredit the institution of domestic law enforcement, not much unlike what happened to the US military during Vietnam, for instance, when the left wing media, activists and people like ‘Hanoi’ Jane worked overtime to convince the American public that every troop in a ‘GI lid’ was a rapist and a babykiller and atrocities like ‘My Lai’ and ‘Tiger Force’ were commonplace, even though that wasn’t the case at all?

Just as in Vietnam, where we never heard about the good that soldiers, sailors, and marines were doing over there, we almost never hear or read about police doing good in the communities we live in. But we almost never hear about the lives saved or the people helped. Instead, we’re fed vicious narratives on how career criminals like George Floyd, Michael Brown, or Trayvon Martin were innocent, gentle souls who were mercilessly crushed by the evil, cowardly, racist cops and how the institution is systemically racist and must be stamped out. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we hear this crap from the same Marxist idiots who force feed society bullshit stories like ‘the earth is melting and only communism can save us’, that ‘a woman can have a penis’, and that ‘we must all surrender our guns to the government for our own good’.

So it seems to me, then, that if that’s all we read and our prior dealings with cops are less than pleasant (and dealings with cops are generally not on great circumstances anyway) then it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that ‘90% of all cops are rotten to the core’. I’m not saying there are no rotten cops. Unfortunately, there are. I AM saying that there are more good cops out there than rotten cops, we hate the rotten cops too, and we DO deal with them – a lot more than you might think, even if you don’t get to see us doing it. A compelling argument? You be the judge. But I offer you this to ponder nonetheless.

By Divemedic, ago

Anthony Oliver & Economic Literacy

Is economically illiterate. He cancelled his show because he won’t do it unless he is paid $120,000, with the venue only charging $25 a ticket.

Don’t buy Cotton Eyed Joe tickets for $99 apiece. Sure as hell don’t buy tickets for VIP passes for whatever bulls–t prices they’re on. Don’t pay $100 for a ticket. If we’ve got to cancel the venue and play somewhere else, we will

Unfortunately this kind of economic self sabotage is common:

  • Complains about poverty
  • Doesn’t understand money
  • Demands $120,000 for a 60 min performance
  • Cancels the performance he agreed to do because he thinks ticket price is too high

The venue only holds 1,500 people. Oliver’s take costs the venue $80 for each ticket, assuming that the show is sold out. He moved the concert to a larger venue (Knoxville Convention Center) which holds 10,000 people. Now his take costs $12 per ticket. The rest of the costs of the venue, as well as profit for the venue, have to come from the other $13.

Do you think he learned about economy of scale? Or does he still not understand how money works?

Economic illiteracy is why so many people don’t understand why it is that a business needs to increase prices. That’s why you see people complaining when fast food prices rise. This guy is upset that it cost him to buy 18 items for 4 people at Taco Bell, and it cost him $53.

It isn’t greed, it’s increased costs. We told you that raising the minimum wage would come back to bite you in the ass. Now it has. That’s just economics. The increased costs of wage hikes, combined with inflation caused by poor monetary policy has made everything cost more.

I am in the middle of setting my rent for the coming listing. Since 2020 when I first rented to this tenant, my costs have increased by 22%. (11 percent per year) Over that same period, I have increased rent by 20%. (ten percent per year) For the coming year that begins October 1:

  • my landscaping cost will be increasing by 13%
  • Property taxes are increasing by 10%
  • I’m waiting to see what will happen with my insurance. That bill comes any day now.

Now that the tenants are moving out, I am free to set my rent to market rate. I think that will be somewhere around a 12-15% increase. Maybe more.

Things like this happen, and people don’t understand why prices had to increase. I run a business. Any well run business will tell you that prices are determined by costs. If my costs exceed what I can charge in prices, then the business will go under. People are the same- you are selling a product. Your labor. What you can charge for that labor is dependent upon its value. If you don’t like the wages that you are making, you need to find a way to make your labor more valuable. If not, the customer who has been purchasing your labor will find a way to buy from someone else, or won’t buy it at all.

This also explains why so many people are poor. They don’t understand economics, money, or how to run a business. Many people can’t even balance a checkbook. How can you run the business of your life when you don’t understand money?

By Divemedic, ago

So What Are You Doing About It?

Republicans are complaining that nursing schools are teaching nursing students to ask children about their gender orientation. The thing about that is, it’s their own fault. The reason why so many hospitals and other health care institutions are doing this is because…

It’s the law.

Section 1557 of Obamacare prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics). So to the Republicans- if you don’t like it, what are you doing about it?

The Democrats see something that they don’t like, and they fight to change it. The Republicans see something that they don’t like, and they… do nothing but bitch and complain.

It took a maverick like Donald Trump to fix the number one target of Republican ire- abortion, and they hate him for it. The Republicans need to stop being useless power mongering whores and actually do the job they were elected to do.

By Divemedic, ago

Spying

A couple of weeks ago, I had a conversation with someone that I know who is an analyst for a US intelligence agency. I’m going to keep this as generic as I can, because even though he says that he told me nothing that could get him in trouble, well, you never know. We had an hour long conversation. A few of the things that he said were things that I found VERY interesting.

  1. The government collects so much intelligence from American citizens that it is almost too much. That is the reason for the massive data centers. It’s difficult to sort through all of the stuff they collect, but they do get a lot of stuff that they pass on to law enforcement. Apparently, they aren’t allowed to collect intel on American citizens on purpose, but if they cast a wide net and get stuff by accident, well, nothing says it can’t be passed along.
  2. Social media and smart phones are the main source. Many of the Apps that are on your phone are collecting massive amounts of data: your location, your secret information, credit stuff, banking information, and more. Many apps have keyloggers that save any information put into your phone and forward it to other parties.
  3. Burner phones are useless. Ten years ago, using a burner was a good way to dodge those collecting information. Not anymore.
  4. If you are a target of clandestine government investigation, there are pocket-sized devices that allow them to walk nearby and download the contents of your phone. Whatever is in your phone now belongs to the government.
  5. He confirmed that the government can and do clandestinely activate the camera and microphone of any internet connected device, including your phone, smart TV, whatever.
  6. Nearly every electronic device and app has some sort of backdoor access installed in it at the request of one government intel agency or another.
  7. He said that, as far as phones go, iPhones were the most compromised, then Android, and believe it or not, Google phones are the most secure. I’m not sure I trust that, but that’s what he said.
  8. He said that many VPNs are routed through China, and you are giving your information to China by using them. I pointed out that I am less afraid of China than I am the US government. I said China wouldn’t care about me because I am not that important. He smiled and just shook his head.
  9. The US government has its hands in more online porn than almost any other entity. The content/pages/etc of online porn sites is riddled with malware and malicious code that belongs to the NSA. According to him, almost everyone looks at porn, and even in Muslim countries, they catch a lot of people and get a lot of information as a result of this.

The scary part is that talking to spooks like this makes you paranoid. I don’t know this guy THAT well, he is more acquaintance than friend. He is a friend of a friend, and I wouldn’t count either of them as being in my inner circle. So why is he telling me all of this? Is this an official interview? Is he skimming my smartphone? (see 4 and 5, above) Is this really a friendly conversation, or is he working?

Either I am being paranoid, or I am not being paranoid enough. No matter what, I’m going to have trouble sleeping while I think about it.

By Divemedic, ago