Divemedic

Why isn’t the economy getting better?

Restaurants in Florida can’t get enough staff to fully open. Some are so desperate for workers, they are offering signing bonuses of up to $400 for wait staff. It turns out not to only be Florida, and not just restaurants.

So what’s going on? Unemployment is at 6 percent, so it isn’t so low that we have full employment. The labor participation rate is at an all time low- only six out of every ten adults are working.

Why? Because the government is paying people $575 a week to not go to work. That works out to $30,000 a year. But that isn’t all. Unemployment isn’t subject to Social Security and Medicare taxes. This means that a person on unemployment is taking home the equivalent of $32,300 a year. Now we find out that there is a program beginning in July that will pay people another $300 per month per child.

So let’s explain what is going on here: (Sorry about all of the math and numbers)

A pair of parents were working to support their two children. They were both working in the tourism industry in Orlando. Together, they were making $50,000 a year. This made them middle class, putting them in the 43rd percentile. Usually, they worked different days, but would occasionally pay for daycare. In all, day care was costing them about $400 a month. This left them about $3,000 a month.

They were laid off at the start of COVID. Now they are getting unemployment in the amount of $1,150 per week between the two of them. There is no longer a need to pay for child care, and they get to spend all of their time in leisure, instead of working. They now are left with $3,600 a month.

Why would they ever want to return to work? It isn’t COVID that is destroying this nation. It is the government. What we are doing is living off of our credit cards. Sooner or later, the cards will be maxed out and the bill will be due. The powers that be know this. The clock is ticking, and we are running out of money and time. What is coming will have to happen before we are out of money.

By Divemedic, ago

Investigation?

Hey! Military investigators- while you are purging the Military of people who express political opinions, why don’t you investigate this idiot?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX_uOoI_63c

You won’t, though, because he isn’t on the right. Yes, he is an idiot. He calls for the military to mutiny and “point our weapons at the people who keep killing black people.” The police kill a dozen or so black people a year. That isn’t even a single weekend in Chicago. Wanna point your weapons at those who kill black people? Point them at other blacks.

By Divemedic, ago

SCOTUS isn’t coming to save you

The Chauvin case is over, and there are already talks of making appeals to the courts. After all, there is no doubt that the trial could not have been a fair one. Peter at Bayou Renaissance Man lays it all out– there are more than enough grounds to file an appeal. There is no doubt that Chauvin cannot get a fair trial in this country. That conviction should be overturned. But that won’t happen. That was the old USA. The one that no longer exists.

The mood in the country is such that any court overturning the conviction would virtually guarantee court packing, term limits for SCOTUS, or some other tampering with our courts. For that reason, the courts have been subverted and will forever bow to the demands of the left. Think that’s not realistic? Let me point out that just six months ago, we still believed in fair elections.

Our constitutional government is dead, and has been since November. This is the USSA. Expect even more show trials. George Zimmerman is as good as dead.

By Divemedic, ago

Where from here?

By now, the entire country knows that Chauvin was found guilty of simultaneously accidentally and purposely killing George Floyd. Anyone paying attention knew that this would happen. Why? Because potential jury member likely to view the case on its merits and give Chauvin a fair trial stayed far, far away from this case and its potential for doxxing and mob violence against any jury that acquitted Chauvin. This left only the jurors who would vote guilty either out of revenge or a sense of self preservation.

Even though most of my readers knew the outcome of this trial before it even started, the question is: “What effect will this have on the country?” To answer that question, all we have to do is listen to the people in charge.

The NAACP says that policing is going to change. I concur.

A former NYC police commissioner says “We still have a long way to go, but the death of Mr. Floyd will accelerate and make much more comprehensive that process of change, and you see it already in the sense of the president of the United States, the vice president, tonight, speaking out in support of the legislation they’ve filed.”

Speaking of the Biden administration- they applauded the verdict, then proposed legislation that effectively destroys law enforcement in this country. I can hear some of you cheering now, but if you think that this will in any way make us more free or be good for the country, you haven’t been paying attention for the past year. Oh- most telling of all is the fact that the law does not apply to Military Police, the US Army Criminal Investigation Command, or to Federal Protective Details. I wonder why that could be…

All of this tells me that I was correct- we are seeing steps to destroy policing in this country so that it can be replaced with a Federal Police Force. Perhaps they can call it the “National Keep Violence Down” force. The abbreviation is cool, too: NKVD.

It is plain that things are going to continue to get uglier as time goes on. Keep your powder dry and your batteries charged.

By Divemedic, ago

George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020

The Biden administration introduced legislation that redefines deadly force to include “multiple discharges of an electronic control weapon.” That’s right- more than one discharge of a Taser is the same as a gunshot. It goes on to prohibit police from investigating other cops for use of deadly force. It grants to the US government the power to set universal standards that all US police agencies must adhere to- including standards on use of force, traffic and pedestrian stop policies, and even controls hiring and recruitment, dictating that police departments must engage in the “hiring and recruitment of diverse law enforcement officers who are representative of the communities they serve.”

That same law prohibits arrests in schools, dictating “restorative justice” practices instead of arrests. This will make our schools even worse than they already are.

The law defines “less lethal force” to include even pointing a gun at someone, and then prohibits the use of that force unless all reasonable alternatives have been exhausted.

The law goes on to prohibit the Federal government from giving firearms, ammo, silencers, vehicles, acoustic equipment, aircraft, drones, and other equipment to police.

It spells out that people must be notified when a body camera is recording and they then have the right to refuse being recorded.

The law goes on and on. In other words, the police will be effectively neutered.

Except that the law does not apply to Military Police, the US Army Criminal Investigation Command, or to Federal Protective Details. Go figure.

By Divemedic, ago

Unbiased

Just 135 days ago, the press, the Pentagon, and everyone else in Washington, DC called President Trump’s plan to withdraw the troops from Afghanistan “controversial” and said that “The Trump administration has thus far failed to explain how a troop withdrawal was in the national security interests of the United States to deny terrorists safe haven in Afghanistan, protect the United States homeland.”

Now Biden announces that the troops will be out on 9/11- and the MSM thinks it is the best idea ever.

Nope. No bias there.

By Divemedic, ago

Lynch mobs

Andrew Branca talks about the intimidation of the jury in the Chauvin trial, and he made some points that struck a chord with me. First, let me start with the relevant quote from the esteemed Mr. Branca:

If it cannot be expected that Chauvin can get any fairer a trial elsewhere in Minnesota than he can in the rage-mob surrounded Hennepin County Courthouse, the solution consistent with the “justice” any of us would want for ourselves or anyone we care about is not to compel him to endure an unfair trial where he is.

That is the point- if a person who is accused of a crime cannot receive a fair and impartial trial under the law, then the law has become nothing more than a codified lynch mob, and we can forget about calling our legal system a “justice system” because there will be no justice of any kind to be had.

The whole point of a trial is that the evidence is heard- both for and against- and then a jury decides whether or not the person is guilty of a crime. If we are to decide that a person is to be punished before the trial is even held, thereby making the trial a mere formality, then why bother with the trial at all?

Is that really what people, especially black people, in this country want? Are we to return to the days of lynch mobs? I fear for the times, the trials, and the tribulations to come. We are truly seeing the end of this republic, of very civilization itself, at least on the North American continent.

What comes next will be horrific.

By Divemedic, ago

Every summer

As I said in an earlier post, we were in New Orleans on the weekend of the 11th of April. While we were there, I lost the ability to connect to my house’s electronic monitors. Then at around 8 pm, a neighbor called to tell us that the house was dark. So we called my in-laws and asked them to stop by.

The UPS that powers some of the devices in the house, including my router, was off. My FIL restarted it, rebooted everything that was connected to it, and everything appeared to be working.

Today was my first day off that I could look into it. Reviewing security footage, it appears like my house was struck by lightning for the third time in the past four years. We were hit in July of 2018, which cost us a security camera, a weather station, and a couple of arc plugs. Then I was hit in July of 2019, which cost me my personal weather station, the video driver for the surveillance camera DVR, a cable TV box, and a wireless HDMI transmitter. My neighbor had a hole blown in his roof.

It seems like weather related damage is the bane of this house’s existence. In 2017, I lost a UPS and some electronic devices during Hurricane Irma, and last year, we had a minor electrical fire that necessitated about $1,000 in repairs.

So far, it looks like the strike from last week cost me very little- but it is annoying. The hygrometer on my weather station has been stuck at 99 percent humidity since the strike. That station is less than a year old and under warranty. I just have to decide if it is worth a trip on to the roof.

The weather station is vulnerable because it is on top of a mast that is mounted on the roof- highest point on the house, you know. I am really considering some lightning rods.

Incidentally, we have had more than 7 inches of rain in the past 10 days. There were 4 inches last weekend, we have had another 3 inches plus since Friday, and it is still raining.

By Divemedic, ago