Divemedic

Price Controls Always Fail

In December, I did a post about rent control. I explained that there are all sorts of steps that property owners can take when the state attempts to control what they can charge in rent. It turns out that landlords in Los Angeles have done exactly that.

During the pandemic, LA passed an ordinance prohibiting landlords from raising rent from one lease period to the next. The definition of increase specifically excluded discounts when calculating base rent. The property owners used that. Let me explain:

The lease says that you can rent my property for $4,000 a month, but I will give you 4 month’s free rent per year, with the free rent being spread across the 1 year term of the lease. So the rent you actually pay is about $2,670 a month. The lease comes to an end, and you want to renew. When you do so, I tell you that I am only going to give you 3 months of free rent this year. That means you will pay me $3,000 a month. Even though you are paying me $330 more a month, I didn’t increase your rent, at least as far as the law is concerned. All I did was reduce your discount.

The tenants say that this is unfair, but I don’t see it as any more unfair than telling a property owner what they can charge for the use of their property. A landlord and a tenant agree to a lease for a one year term. The following year is a completely separate sale. Once the first year’s lease is concluded, that deal is complete. Now we are here to negotiate a completely different agreement.

Imagine if there were a law telling supermarkets that they cannot raise prices. Or a gas station that it can’t raise the price of gas. Or even a car dealership. It’s all been tried before, and price controls always fail in the end.

By Divemedic, ago

Why It Matters.

Imagine that you own a chain of gun stores in Missouri. You are selling about $4 million a year in firearms, where it is completely legal to do so. That would be awesome.

Now let’s say that the government has managed to get all of the local banks and credit card companies to refuse doing business with you, so you are forced to hire an armored car company to transport the proceeds from your cash sales. They pick up the cash in Missouri, and transport it across Illinois to Tennessee.

Now selling guns is illegal in Illinois, so the cops pull over your armored car and confiscate all of your cash. $700,000 of it. Then a week later, they do it again.

That is why I am upset by what is happening in Kansas and California. I don’t care if pot is legal or not, there are rules for searching and seizing property, and this ain’t it. There are two Amendments to the Constitution that say this shouldn’t be happening. But it is.

Amendment 4
– Protection from Unreasonable Searches and Seizures

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment 5
– Protection of Rights to Life, Liberty, and Property

No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.

The rights protected by the Constitution aren’t only rights for people that I happen to agree with. They are for everyone. Someone doesn’t lose those rights merely because another person has accused them of being a lawbreaker, even if the accusation is being made by a cop or other government official. ESPECIALLY if that accusation is being made by a cop or other government official.

By Divemedic, ago

The Pin Up Girl Who Helped Win a War

I recently met a woman with the most amazing life story. A truly remarkable woman with an incredibly interesting tale to tell. I spent over two hours listening to her as she told this story to me. Her name is Audra, and this is her story.

When Audra turned 16 years old, she decided to run away from the boarding school that she called home. With a Greyhound bus ticket in one hand and her bags in the other, Audra was to Chicago. When she arrived, it was to discover that America was at war. The date was December 7, 1941.

Chicago was known as the pulse of America, but Audra found it to be the pulse of her story. She found opportunity there after she became a showgirl in a high-class dinner nightclub, where Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra performed. She was the opening act for both of them.

She told me how “Frank and Dean” used to pinch her on her bottom, and she would turn and gently slap them while wagging a finger at them.

She soon moved on to support the war effort by becoming an inspector for the seats on fighter aircraft that were being manufactured in Chicago’s Chrysler factory. If the seat passed inspection, she stamped her initials onto them.

While working for Chrysler, Audra entered a company beauty contest competing for the “Blonde Bomber B-29” title. Coming in first place, she made headline news and became a “pinup girl.” She actually became one of the women used as nose art on American bombers.

After learning about the contest, a fighter pilot reached out to Chrysler requesting a picture of Audra “Miss Blonde Bomber.” The contest picture was soon sent to him and he pinned it up in his cockpit. When the war ended and the plane was returned, officials found Audra’s picture still hanging in that aircraft. Coincidentally, that aircraft’s seat had her initials stamped on it as one that she had inspected.

Audra eventually became a trained machinist’s assistant and in the tail end of the war had a job grinding valves for the engines of B-29s. So it was that in 1945, one of her valve sets was used in one of the first Silver B-29 bombers, one bearing the serial number of 44-86292. She was considered the aircraft’s good luck charm, and even though the aircraft didn’t bear her name, her picture was carried to war, pinned to the inside of the lower cabin.

That B29 was named by its pilot. The plane was named the Enola Gay.

That fighter pilot who carried her picture as he sat in the seat that she had inspected? After the war, he searched for her until he found her. They were married, and Audra became a June Taylor dancer. For the next five years, Audra appeared on shows like Jackie Gleason’s “Toast of the Town.”

After five years, she left the dance troupe to raise the first of the couple’s three children. She remained married to that fighter pilot for 44 years, until his death more than 30 years ago.

It was a real honor to get to know this incredible woman and hear her larger than life story. That entire generation is filled with truly incredible Americans. Sadly, that generation is dying off, and with them, so is this nation.

By Divemedic, ago

Agents Provocateur

There is an old saying: How do you spot the Fed or the police informant? He is the one urging you to break the law.

There are some people who have been emailing, posting, and commenting that seem eager to get some sort of incriminating statement from others. Just last week, one of them was dumb enough to post from an IP that traces back to a Federal Law enforcement office in the DC area. For Christ’s sake, the Feds can’t even afford to spoof an IP?

No one here is going to tell you about how they are plotting violence, or how they are flouting the law. This blog is being run in the public eye. I am not stupid enough to be locked up in a cell without bail, getting beaten every day while I await a trial that isn’t going to happen.

Anyone who has been paying attention to the J6 people know that the Feds operate by getting you to say inflammatory, illegal things and then framing you.

No thanks. Go try that stuff somewhere else.

By Divemedic, ago

Policing For Profit, Episode CXVII

There is an old quote where a bank robber was asked why he robs banks. He replied, “Because that is where the money is.” It seems that the police have decided to take his advice and begin robbing the modern day version of the stagecoach. The Feds are helping them.

Sheriffs in California and Kansas have exploited the fact that marijuana distribution, while legal in those states, is illegal under Federal Law. Because of this fact, they are having deputies conduct traffic stops on the armored cars and confiscating all of the money. In the case of Kansas, no law is being broken in Kansas. The cops are merely stopping the armored cars that are transporting the cash from Missouri pot shops to Colorado banks.

As soon as the money is seized, the cops turn the money over to the Feds, which places it out of the jurisdiction of state judges, who are then unable to intervene. Under Federal forfeiture laws, the local cops get 80% of whatever the Federal government confiscates. Getting $800,000 for a traffic stop is a pretty lucrative business move.

This is purely an attempt to use badges to conduct armed robbery. The cops want people not to oppose them, but that is pretty hard to do when you are acting more like a criminal gang than you are a legitimate law enforcement agency.

By Divemedic, ago

Parent’s Rights

A mother was actively contacting her daughter’s teachers because she believed that the teachers were impressing sexual beliefs on her daughter. During the school year, she wound up sending 500 emails to school staff, which triggered at least three investigations into the behavior of various staff members. As a former teacher, I can understand how parents can be vexing and unreasonable at times. This doesn’t appear to be one of those cases.

The first complaint lodged by the mother was triggered by a teacher who asked students what name and pronouns they preferred. They also asked if it was OK to share that information with the teens’ parents. This attempt at grooming and converting children into the LGTBQ lifestyle has spawned at least one lawsuit Florida already.

This has been going on for years. I faced it when I was teaching. There is a battle going on in school districts between liberal advocates who want to groom your children and conservative teachers who are opposing them. It’s gotten so bad that there is a bill in the Florida legislature that bans schools from discussing homosexuality with students.

It gets worse. The mother reported that various teachers were discussing issues such as “safe space” rainbow stickers on classroom walls, the intrusion of “critical race theory” into the schools, and even made regular trips to the School Board to express her views.

School staff tried taking her to court for restraining orders on three different occasions. They lost. One of the teachers even claims that she was forced to retire, rather than continue answering emails from a parent. That is pure horse manure. There is a statute that permits a teacher to force a student to be removed from their class and placed in another teacher’s classroom. This is pure sympathy grandstanding.

As a result of all of this, the superintendant of schools has had the girl removed from her school and sent elsewhere- essentially expelled her- because her mother chose to exercise the rights she has under Florida law as a parent.

These communists are waging all out war in any way that they can. They are trying to hold your children hostage. Don’t let them.

By Divemedic, ago

SWAT team dance

Sung to the tune of “Safety Dance” with apologies to Men Without Hats:

S-s-s-s, W-w-w-w, A-a-a-a, T-t-t-t
SWAT, SWAT, dance!

We can search if we want to
We can inspect your friends’ behind
‘Cause your friends don’t bow and if they don’t scrape,
Well they’re no friends of mine

Say, we can go where we want to
A warrant you’ll never find
And we can rewrite the Constitution
Leave the real one far behind
And we can dance

We can go when we want to
The night is young and so am I
And we can dress real neat from our helmets to our feet
And surprise ’em with the no-knock cry

Say, we can act if we want to
Question us, nobody will
And we can shoot some dude, he’s totally screwed
And I can act like an imbecile

We can dance, we can dance
Totally out of control
We can dance, we can dance
We’re doing it from wall to wall
We can dance, we can dance
Everybody put up your hands
We can dance, we can dance
Everybody takin’ the cha-a-a-ance

We can search if we want to
We have auth-or-i-ty
As long as we abuse it, never gonna lose it
Everything’ll work out right
I say, we can search if we want to
We’re protected by a thin blue line
‘Cause your friends ain’t cops, and if they ain’t cops,
Well they’re no friends of mine

By Divemedic, ago