Government

Not Political? OK

Justice Breyer just announced his retirement. He claims that the SCOTUS isn’t a political entity:

“It is wrong to think of the court as another political institution,” he said in an April speech at Harvard Law School. “And it is doubly wrong to think of its members as junior league politicians.”

He added, justices “are loyal to the rule of law, not to the political party that helped to secure their appointment.”

OK. Pull the other leg, it has bells on it. The Supreme Court is, and always has been, a political entity. Breyer is retiring at this particular point in time because there is a Democrat in the White House, and the Democrats hold a razor thin edge in the Senate. They rolled the dice in 2016 and lost that bet, so they aren’t likely to do it again.

The left is still salty because the Senate wouldn’t allow Obama to replace Scalia with a leftist, thus cementing a hard left SCOTUS for decades.

The Democrats could have selected Scalia’s replacement in 2016, and the accusation is that the Republicans wouldn’t allow his selectee to be voted upon. That is pure BS. The Obama administration could have had Scalia’s replacement in 2016. All they had to do was offer a replacement that was not a hard core leftist. Had the Democrats offered a more centrist candidate, the Republicans would have likely approved. The Republican Senate would have approved a left leaning centrist, rather than wait to see the hard core leftist that HRC was going to nominate.

But Obama didn’t do that. Why not?

Because everyone who mattered was absolutely convinced that Hillary was going to be the next President. Her victory was a guarantee. The Democrats believed it so much, they decided to stick to the extremist pick on the theory that HRC was going to ram through a leftist candidate to replace Scalia and swing the court to the left.

Instead, the Republicans got to install Gorsuch. That was bad enough from their point of view, but still didn’t swing the court to the left.

The real damage came because Ginsberg decided to hold out for the HRC presidency that never materialized. RBG could have retired in 2016 and been replaced by an Obama selectee, but chose not to. Why did she do that? 

Ginsberg wanted to be in the history books after retiring during a Hillary Clinton Presidency, so she could become the first female Justice to be replaced by the first female President. 

That big mistake became the decision that threw SCOTUS firmly to the right by giving President Trump a recently unheard of three SCOTUS picks. The last President who got to do that was Ronald Reagan.

Everyone who mattered thought that Hillary was going to be the next President. The Democrats believed it so much, they decided to stick to the extremist pick on the theory that HRC was going to ram through a leftist candidate to replace Scalia and swing the court to the left. They didn’t need to pick a moderate SCOTUS candidate. If the Senate didn’t confirm Obama’s pick, HRC would get the pick. RBG didn’t need to retire while Obama was in the Oval office, HRC would pick her replacement.

They bet on an HRC victory. Trump’s victory destroyed all of that, and this set up to make the SCOTUS a conservative court for the next 20 years.

The retirement of Breyer won’t change that.

Interesting trivia:

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt got eight of his nominees on the Supreme Court in six years while in office. There was also Dwight Eisenhower, William Taft and Ulysses Grant, each of whom got five nominees on the court.

Nixon, Truman, Harding, Harrison, and Cleveland each got four picks.

Reagan, Hoover, Wilson, Roosevelt, and Trump each got three.

Obama, both Bushes, Clinton, Johnson, Kennedy, and Hayes each picked two for the high court.

Ford, Coolidge, McKinley, and Garfield each only picked one justice.

By Divemedic, ago

Crime DOES Pay

Orlando will soon be paying criminals to not commit crimes, and to counsel others to avoid crime as well. Called “neighborhood change agents,” they will be individuals who have similar backgrounds, come from similar communities as those who are at risk of committing violent crimes. They may be people who got in trouble as youth themselves, who have been arrested, and involved in gangs. According to the program:

Neighborhood Change Agents” (NCAs) who will intervene to disrupt situations when violence appears imminent, and maintain daily contact with participants, serving as mentors, case managers and life coaches. Their goal will be to pivot participants away from circumstances leading toward violence, and instead to non-violent, economically, and socially productive lives.

Paying criminals not to commit crimes. This was a program that began in Richmond, CA back in 2016. Fox News reported on it at the time. San Francisco started doing it last year.

So this year, as you are filing your taxes, remember that this is where your hard earned money is going: you are paying protection money to criminals in the hopes that they won’t kill you. I don’t even know why we need cops anymore.

By Divemedic, ago

More Intel

An email from Jack asks what software I am using for my flight tracking. I tried to answer him, but the email bounced, so I am posting it here. The answer is that I am using globe.adsbexchange.com/ to do most of the flight tracking on this blog.

Another reader sends me a link to an excellent app called skyglass. It can be found online here. The advantage of this software is that it can see aircraft that the first link above can’t see.

Mark sends a link to the following intel briefing, that coincidentally uses skyglass. Check it out, it is definitely worth some of your time.

This supports my theory that the US is increasing its alert levels for CONUS security.

By Divemedic, ago

Increased Activity

As I have mentioned before, I keep an eye on military air activity in and around the US, and there has been some unusual activity since the weird goings on from the unexplained ground stop on January 11. It’s been cold and raining, so I can’t get any work done outside. I already fixed the faulty sensor in the dishwasher, so I am sitting here online.

There are Russian ships doing what the Soviets did during the cold war: they are sitting just offshore of our Naval facilities, keeping an eye on things, as well as Russian long range aircraft nearing US Pacific bases. The US is responding by flying more P8 and drone patrols off the coast of Jacksonville and King’s Bay, Hawaii, Norfolk, and Puget Sound. For example, here is a track of two aircraft near Cape Canaveral:

The Blue one is a P8 Poseidon antisubmarine patrolling between 8,000 and 25,000 feet. The yellow is an unidentified military aircraft that has been patrolling at 6,000 to 10,000 feet.

There are similar tracks up and down the east coast. For example, here are another pair of P8s patrolling just to the north of Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point, which is the main ammunition shipping terminal for the east coast.

Here is a P3 Orion (the lime green one) and a P8, both patrolling off the coast of Jacksonville. The orange aircraft is a P8 that appears to be landing in Jacksonville. What is different about the P3, is that it has a magnetic anomaly detector, while the P8 does not. The MAD allows for the localization of large metallic objects, like submarines.

The P3 is being phased out of service, with only two reserve squadrons left that still operate the aircraft.

Also, last night I tracked an E6 Mercury that took off from Andrews and flew a racetrack that extended from Andrews down to Miami. They were on their second lap when I went to bed last night at around 2200. Here is an E6 taking off at noon from Pax River:

The E6 is a command and control aircraft for America’s nuclear submarines. Keep in mind that the US claims that no nuclear control aircraft are on airborne alert. Other than for training, the US has claimed since 1990 that they no longer maintain a continuous airborne alert. That apparently hasn’t been the case for the past two weeks, at least. The one that I have observed on the east coast flies up and down the coast. A west coast E6 has been seen flying out to sea before disappearing over the pacific, or has been seen appearing out of the pacific and flying back. Here it is, leaving California, headed out into the Pacific at 1315:

There was a surveillance drone circling off the Georgia coast at an altitude of over 30,000 feet for more than 12 hours yesterday. The racetrack ran from about the latitude of Jacksonville, FL all the way to the South Carolina border, about 60 miles offshore. The drone both took off an landed in the Jacksonville area.

There are two conclusions to be drawn from this: Either the US military is greatly increasing its training tempo, or its alert status. Either way, this is interesting.

By Divemedic, ago

Just in Case

In the event that Russia DOES invade the Ukraine, expect Joe the Potato to use US troops in response. This won’t just be a land war like it was with ISIS. Russia isn’t sending over 100 ships to the region because they think it will be restricted warfare. Expect this conflict, if it happens, to quickly escalate to unrestricted air, sea, and virtual warfare.

There will be severe disruptions of Internet service, virtual attacks on infrastructure, and there is a real possibility of conventional Russian air attacks on US cities, especially cities with US military bases, large air ports, and US sea ports.

The Russians have made contingency plans for this escalating, which is why the Russian boomers all sortied back in late November. Just another thing to be prepared for. Be sure that you have the ability to do without Internet, power, water, and supply deliveries for a period of time.

Let’s hope that everyone comes to their senses.

By Divemedic, ago

Quickly Developing

Now the US has given 8,500 American troops orders to stand by to be sent to Europe. Holy shit, this guy really is looking for a fight. He went from “considering” it to alerting troops for movement in less than 6 hours. We are literally doing more to defend the borders of the Ukraine than we are our own borders.

The Democrats have wanted a war with the Russians ever since they snubbed Obama in 2014. So then we accused them of rigging the HRC defeat in 2016. It seems like they have been trying to pick a fight with them for years. Don’t forget when the Democrats did the “selfie” campaign to save the Ukraine from Russia in 2014.

Yes, Psaki was the Dept of State Spokesperson in 2014, the last time Russia did this

Here is my theory: There have been rumors that Biden’s strings are actually being pulled by Obama. This situation with Russia and the Ukraine is Obama being pissed because the Russkies bent him over the Ukraine in 2014.

By Divemedic, ago

Third World Policing

Wirecutter over at Knukledraggin my Life Away points out a story of a tiny Alabama town that has discovered that it can use cops as a money making machine and has become the worst speed trap in the entire nation. The town has less than 1300 residents, but has at least sixteen full time cops and a number of part time cops. (The police chief, claiming “security” won’t tell how many cops he has) Those cops make over 1,000 arrests, write over 3,000 traffic citations, and have their own SWAT team, complete with an armored vehicle that they call a “riot control vehicle.” (How big of a riot can that small of a town have?)

Read the article that the post is based on, and think about this quote:

Chief Jones testified under oath that just one of the 10 Brookside vehicles is painted with police striping, but nine others bear no emblems, and seven are tinted all the way around, making it impossible to see inside. Jones testified his officers wear gray uniforms with no Brookside insignias.

These dumbasses think that they are badasses because they carry the authority of a badge that they don’t even wear. Thinking that they are some kid of secret agents, they act more like a street gang that is shaking down the citizens for protection money. They refer to themselves as “agents” and do not provide their identification, even on arrest affidavits:

The names of the officers were not listed on the tickets in secretive Brookside. Instead, the arresting officer was listed as “Agent JS,” while the assisting officer was “Agent AR.”

Arrests in Alabama come from all sorts of things that you wouldn’t think are a crime. For example: It is considered road rage in Alabama to drive in the left lane for more than a mile and a half. One of my favorite legal Youtube channels is Lehto’s Law. Take a look:

The entire thing is a scam. The traffic court judge is a local lawyer who was hired as the municipal traffic court judge to hold court one day a month. When audited, the town had no written budget. Wanna take odds on some skimming off the top by the police chief, Mayor, and judge?

These idiots are so predictable, it begs for an ambush. The kinder version would have a person with hidden cameras break a traffic law in full view of Roscoe Coaltrain, and when he pulls you over it seems like it would be easy to get some civil rights violations on film. Then they can be taken down by some good attorneys.

The more aggressive ambush would be to goad them into a traffic stop, coming to a halt in a kill zone, then having an ambush team light up one of these would be secret agents. Since they are in unmarked vehicles and wearing clothes with no insignia, one could argue that they look more like a criminal gang conducting an ambush than they do a legitimate police force.

By Divemedic, ago