Government

Secret Police

Marsalee (Marsy) Ann Nicholas was stalked and killed by her ex-boyfriend in 1983. Only one week after her murder and on the way home from the funeral service, Marsy’s family was confronted by her daughter’s murderer. Having received no notification from the judicial system, the family had no idea he had been released on bail mere days after Marsy’s murder. Marsy’s family was not informed because the courts and law enforcement had no obligation to keep them informed.

As a result, voters in seventeen states have passed Marsy’s law, with Florida voters passing its version of the law in 2018. The law was sold as a victims’ rights bill, but it wasn’t long before the law of unintended consequences showed itself.

Since police who use force against someone are only doing so because they claim themselves to be victims of a crime, they can refuse to allow their names to be released. A cop can claim that someone threatened them, use force against that person, and then demand that their names be withheld because they are a victim.

That is exactly what happened here when a police officer shot and killed a man on the campus of a Melbourne college. The odd part here is that the same law doesn’t appear to apply when a private citizen does the exact same thing.

When the voters of this state voted on the amendment, it was intended to give victims of crimes a bit of privacy. It wasn’t intended to give police a means of becoming secret death squads with no public accountability.

By Divemedic, ago

Iranian Situation

Israel today warned that Tehran is not being very cooperative in diplomatic talks about its nuclear program. Israel’s lead diplomat on Iran, Joshua Zarka, said that they “have reached the last stretch of diplomacy.” Even the UN says that:

There’s no other country other than those making nuclear weapons reaching those high levels” of uranium enrichment

That is because Iran now has a large stockpile of 60% enriched uranium, and is just a short step away from having enough 90% enriched uranium for several nuclear weapons.

Iran has never really hidden the fact that they want nuclear weapons, and will not hesitate to use them on Israel as soon as they acquire them. It is my belief that Iran is merely stalling with all of the talk, talk, talk so that the US won’t do anything until it is too late and Iran has a couple of deliverable weapons.

Proving me to be correct, that potato that we have sitting in the Oval Office reportedly received a briefing by Pentagon leaders on a full set of military options available to ensure that Iran would not be able to produce a nuclear weapon. Of course, they decided to talk instead.

Not only talk, but take steps to ensure that Israel won’t have a way to strike the weapons plant by depriving Israel of the refueling tankers they need to carry out the long range strike.

This, in my opinion, is a short sighted and stupid move. If Iran winds up with nuclear weapons, which seems more and more likely each day, they WILL use them. Whether it is against the US or Israel is yet to be seen, but the smart money is on Israel.

Tel Aviv is preoccupied by the fear that an adversary might one day attempt a first strike to destroy its nuclear missiles and strike planes on the ground before they can retaliate. So preoccupied, that they have developed a second strike capability.

Israel does not have a choice but to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, because she cannot live with it. The suggestion that Israel could simply outsource her deterrence to the US, even if the US were led by someone more dependable than the man who called the rout of American forces from Afghanistan “an extraordinary success,” is more than stupid – it is suicidal. This is one of the reasons why countries all over the region are watching the situation with the Ukraine so closely.

It is known that Israel’s 3 Dolphin and 3 Dolphin 2 class submarines are armed with long range cruise missiles that are each capable of delivering a 200 kiloton warhead to targets at least 950 miles away. In fact, Israel has already carried out strikes using submarine launched cruise missiles armed with conventional warheads.

The land based missile is the Jericho, which Israel has a few of. The Jericho 2 and 3 are each capable of striking any target in Iran.

Israel is believed to have somewhere between 65 to 200 or even as many as 400 nuclear warheads. No one really knows for sure. I think Israel likes it that way- they want everyone to know that they HAVE some, but not necessarily how many, what sizes, or what delivery method.

A nuclear armed Iran will almost certainly end in a nuclear exchange. I don’t think that Iran will get a nuke any time soon. Israel has a long history of finding unexpected solutions to problems, and this is a big one.

By Divemedic, ago