Divemedic

Why the Ukraine is important

A comment to my recent post about the impending Russian invasion of Ukraine was:

These uSA have no business in Ukraine. The comparison with the USSR’s attempt to put missiles in Cuba is apt.

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What is happening in the Ukraine is very important to the US and its defense. Let me explain how:

In 1994, the Soviet Union had just broken up, and one of the new nations was the Ukraine. Ukraine had on its territory the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal- an arsenal that was larger than the nuclear arsenals of Britain, France and China combined. There was a lot of concern at the time that one of these warheads would wind up in the wrong hands, and there was a lot of pressure on Ukraine for them to turn those warheads over to Russia.

To make this happen, Ukraine needed some reassurances against aggression. The Ukrainians asked for certain things, one of which was a security assurance that the United States and Russia would pay attention and respect Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, that there would be no use of force or threat of force against Ukraine.

Enter the Budapest Memorandum, which was signed on December 4, 1994. It now appears as though the countries who swore to honor Ukraine’s borders in exchange for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons are going back on their word.

Yet another example of the US being unwilling or unable to honor its international commitments. The world is watching.

There are a list of countries that have given up their nuclear weapons: Libya, South Africa, and now the Ukraine. Each of those governments were subsequently overthrown. What message does that send to other countries with nuclear aspirations? Iran, North Korea, Israel, Pakistan.

This to me is the opening of a new, more dangerous phase of nuclear proliferation. The possibility of a nuclear weapon being used is now dependent on whichever of those governments is the LEAST stable. What this means is that North Korea or Iran is likely to use a nuclear weapon in the near future.

Couple this with a feckless US president who has the intelligence of a potato. The situation in the Ukraine makes it all the more likely that we will see a nuclear exchange within the next 4 years. It would not surprise me to see Israel and Iran trade a couple of nukes before our next Presidential election. Even more worrisome is the possibility that the US winds up catching one of them.

By Divemedic, ago

Omicron vaccine

Pfizer and BioNTech say their vaccine booster provides a high level of protection against omicron variant. Since the vaccine is, according to all the data, not preventing anyone from getting or spreading COVID, and all that it is purported to do is possibly lessen the severity of the symptoms, it begs the question:

Uh, what does that matter? COVID itself has an overall survival rate of 98.4%, and the omicron variant, according to the CDC, “the disease is mild” in almost all of the cases seen so far, with reported symptoms mainly cough, congestion and fatigue. The side effects of the vaccine are worse than the symptoms of the omicron variant.

By Divemedic, ago

Threatening to nuke Russia?

Headlines today are being made by a US Senator who, they claim, threatened to nuke Russia over a theoretical invasion of the Ukraine. I don’t have a problem with the statement. Let me explain by starting with what the Senator said:

When asked to clarify what he meant by “military action,” Wicker recounted measures ranging from the American “ships in the Black Sea” to “first-use nuclear action.”

“We don’t rule out first-use nuclear action, we don’t think it will happen but there are certain things in negotiations, if you are going to be tough, that you don’t take off the table,” the Mississippi senator added.

If the United States (or any nation) is attempting to influence another nation, that other nation doesn’t need to know what the limits of the US response are going to be. This keeps the other side from doing a cost benefit analysis and deciding that it’s worth it. If you are threatening a military response, but then go ahead and outline the limits of that response, you are weakening your own position.

It’s like dealing with an armed robber. Let’s say that the robber is in the middle of robbing a store that you are standing in. You point a gun at him and tell him to stop robbing the store, or else. He replies, “Or else what?” and then you tell him, “Or else I will send you a strongly worded letter, or perhaps I will report you to the cops, but what I won’t do is shoot you.” How do you think that will work out?

What if instead, you tell him, “If you rob this store, I will turn your head into a canoe” What would happen then?

You want the enemy to know there will be a response, you want them to know it will be painful, but you don’t want them to know that all you have in your hand is a pair of fives.

By Divemedic, ago

Overturning SCOTUS Precedent

There is a move to overturn the most important and wide ranging Supreme Court Decision ever made. Not Roe v. Wade, not Brown v. Board of Education. No, the one that the left wants to overturn is Marbury v. Madison.

Marbury was the most important decision ever made by SCOTUS, because it was that decision that gave us judicial review. That case established for the first time that federal courts had the power to overturn an act of Congress on the ground that it violated the U.S. Constitution. The left wants to do away with that, and I think that I know why, but before I explain that, let’s look at why I think this is the left’s latest target. Read from the report itself (pdf alert):

What is the category of decisions to which the Court should be more deferential? Is the concern that the Court exercises too much power just about the invalidation of Acts of Congress, or does it extend to the much more common instances in which the Court declares unconstitutional the actions of states or local
governments?

Those two forms of judicial review raise significantly different issues, but both implicate the power of the Court to overturn enactments by democratically elected bodies. In addition, the Court exercises power over the other branches of the federal government in ways apart from its constitutional holdings. The Court interprets federal statutes and can declare unlawful the actions of executive branch agencies. Though these decisions, unlike constitutional holdings, can in principle be overturned by legislation, in practice the difficulty of enacting legislation routinely means that what the Court says is the last word.
Perhaps the more fundamental question — the one that has attracted so much discussion for so long is when deference is justified and when it is not. In prominent cases, the Court has intervened to try to protect racial or religious minorities or political dissidents from the abusive actions of majorities. If the Court were to adopt a posture of across-the -board
deference, it would no longer play that role . But some critics of the Court assert that greater deference would be worth it, that the gains from those celebrated decisions are outweighed by the instances in which the Court has prevented democratically -elected branches of government from serving the nation’s interests, including by recognizing and protecting individual rights and the rights of minority and disadvantaged groups.

Page 26 of the report, emphasis added by Divemedic

Read those bolded parts. What the commission, and by extension the left, is trying to say is that they don’t want SCOTUS overruling the other branches of government. They want a government that is no longer constrained by the Constitution. Without a Supreme Court ruling that certain acts and laws are not Constitutional, the legislative and executive branches would no longer be constrained by our founding documents.

Since we all know that elections don’t mean shit and have been gamed, cutting the courts out of our government would be handing the keys of our nation over to the communist dictators that currently run the Democratic party.

Packing the court would likely be seen by Suzie Soccermom as a power grab, drawing the ire of the general public. Removing the power of the court to overturn unconstitutional edicts would be obscure enough that America’s inability to grasp legal nuance and to read a story that is more than a paragraph long would likely pass without complaint.

That is the real danger: A Democratic party unrestrained by the ballot box, the Constitution, or a Supreme Court.

By Divemedic, ago

You’re doing it wrong

A city worker was injured after being struck by debris from a blank that had been fired during active shooter simulation training. Did we learn nothing from the Alec Baldwin disaster? Even with blanks, projectiles still leave the barrel, and using real firearms to fire blanks is just asking for live ammo to work its way into the training scenario. All it takes is one forgotten spare magazine in an officer’s pouch, and tragedy results.

When engaging in gunfire simulation, there are a few rules, the first of which is that you don’t use real firearms. There are plenty of alternatives. From high realism/low danger like simunition, to Airsoft, paintballs, blue guns, or even simply fireworks.

There is no need EVER for pointing real firearms capable of firing actual bullets at people in a training situation. You have set yourself up for a scenario where a single point of failure is all that stands between safety and serious injury.

Look at this picture from another version of the story and tell me what this is accomplishing:

Slide lock, magazine inserted, in holster? Don’t get me started on the flimsy belt or the bunch of fabric that can get caught in the safetyless Glock trigger.

By Divemedic, ago

Air Security Failure

A man flew from Barbados to Miami International with a loaded .32 revolver in his carry on. They claim that he was arrested after TSA agents found a handgun in his belongings.

I don’t buy it. Since when does the TSA screen people who are getting off of a plane? One of two things happened here: Either he brought it to their attention himself, or he was caught because he had to exit and reenter security for some reason.

The article reads like the TSA is so much better at security than other agencies. This summer, it was announced that TSA agents missed 95% of weapons that were placed in luggage by inspectors. In 17 out of 18 tries by the undercover federal agents saw explosive materials, fake weapons, or drugs pass through TSA screening undetected.

The problem that I have here, all incompetence aside, is that TSA is wasting time and effort looking for drugs. Their main and only purpose is supposed to be safety. in fact, the only reason that SCOTUS even allowed this violation of the Fourth Amendment was that the TSA was for safety and not law enforcement purposes, but that is not the point of this post.

The 2021 failure rate is not anything new. In 2017, they missed 70% of weapons. In 2015, they failed 95% of the time. Congress has been briefed that the TSA is a colossal waste of money.

I can believe it. I have had two incidents where I accidentally flew with weapons.

  • I once flew from Fairbanks to Los Angeles with a large container of bear mace in my carry on bag.
  • I once flew from Orlando to Nashville, including a layover in Atlanta, with a Glock 9mm in my carry on. I had simply forgotten that it was in my bag. I went to the airport, passed through security, and boarded the plane. When I put my bag in the overhead compartment, I heard a loud thump. I wondered what I had in there that was so heavy, and it dawned on me in an instant. I flew the entire way to Atlanta in a cold sweat. I was worried that I would have to pass through security again to change gates at my layover. It turns out that I didn’t. Once I was on the second flight, I realized that most security is theater. The TSA is staffed with a bunch of minimum wage high school dropouts. The only reason that 911 hasn’t happened again is that no one has tried.

The TSA catches 4,500 or so firearms at checkpoints per year. Assuming that they catch as many as 30% of them, as they did in the best year they ever had, this means that 15,000 or more firearms per year wind up on America’s aircraft. If they only catch 5%, as they did in the most recent test, as many as 90,000 firearms per year wind up flying the friendly skies.

The TSA costs us taxpayers $8.24 billion per year. That is over $1.8 million for each detected firearm, while they miss 95% of the firearms in passenger luggage. Who knows how much extra the TSA agents steal on top of that? The TSA has fired nearly 400 employees for stealing from travelers’ luggage.

The Miami Airport is #1 in TSA agent thefts, which ranks twelfth in passengers, with 29 employees terminated for theft from 2002 through December 2011.

This is one of the marks of third world shithole countries: the police are often on the take. If they are willing to steal, how willing are they to take bribes? Officers in Palm Beach, New Haven, Newark, and Westchester have all been caught accepting bribes from people for circumventing security. In fact, 20,000 of the TSA’s 55,000 agents have had complaints of misconduct against them, but 95% of the time, no discipline is administered.

The TSA, like most of the government, is a jobs program that is nothing more than a waste of taxpayer money that doesn’t accomplish the mission that it has been assigned.

Disclaimer: The stories above are for illustrative and artistic purposes only. They may or may not have happened. The posts on this site should not be construed as a confession or admission of guilt. So if any Federal, State, or Local law enforcement are reading this page, you should keep in mind that I probably never did any of the things I claim to have done. So there.

By Divemedic, ago

End of Greatness

The last of World War Two’s 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment has passed away at the age of 99. The regiment was the subject of an HBO series “Band of Brothers” and some of the things that they did became textbook examples of how to carry out various infantry actions.

With the loss of the last survivor of the regiment, an era of history has ended. Where they have gone, the reunions will be epic. Enjoy Valhalla, sir.

By Divemedic, ago

Charges?

The Santa Fe DA says this about Alec Baldwin:

“Guns don’t just go off. So whatever needs to happen to manipulate the firearm, he did that, and it was in his hands.”

Now I still think that Alec Baldwin has enough money and celebrity to get out of it. We all know that there are two sets of laws in this country: One for rich lefties, and one for the rest of us. That doesn’t mean that the law wasn’t broken, just that he will use connections to get out of it.

By Divemedic, ago