German Chancellor Vows to Leave No Merkelstein Unturned

It’s beginning to look a lot like elections 

Voters a bit subnormal, 

Saying Olaf, Was zum Teufel?, it’s hard to be real joyful

When vehicle barriers aren’t so uniformal 

It’s beginning to look a lot like elections 

Politics are all amoral, 

But the prettiest sight to see is the scapegoat that might be

Nailed to your own front door 

A bit of news today on that Christmas market attack and the inevitable search for the officials who dropped the ball by allowing a big, obvious, vulnerable gap in the market's anti-ram perimeter. Read it here: 

German security and intelligence chiefs faced questioning Monday about the car-ramming attack that killed five people and wounded more than 200 at a Christmas market 10 days ago. 

They were to be quizzed about possible missed clues and security failures before the December 20 attack in the eastern city of Magdeburg, where police arrested a Saudi psychiatrist, Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, at the scene. 

-- snip -- 

Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who faces a general election in February, has declared that Germany needs to "investigate whether this terrible act could have been prevented".

"No stone must be left unturned," he told news portal T-online on Friday. 

No stone? As in no Merklestein? Precisely, Herr Chancellor! 

A gap left in an otherwise continuous perimeter of anti-ram barriers was exactly what allowed that ramming attack to happen at the Magdelburg Christmas market. 

Someone was careless, and I suspect you have already expended some typical German efficiency in lining up a few likely suspects, probably low-ranking and expendable ones. 

All’s that left is to hang him or them out to dry before those general elections. 

Wrongfully Detained, But No Longer Biden's Problem

The friends and family of Marc Fogel, the U.S. citizen and teacher who was arrested in Moscow on drug charges back in 2021, have been making a public pitch for him to be designated as wrongfully detained under the Robert Levinson Act, but that had seemed to go nowhere. In all frankness, the guy was simply guilty as charged and caught red-handed. I posted much more on that at the time he was convicted: see this. 

However, something seems to have moved the Biden Administration to designate him anyway, and after all this time, just three weeks before they leave office. What motivated that, I wonder? 

A few good news media quotes here: 

An American schoolteacher arrested in Russia on drug charges more than four years ago has been designated by the U.S. government as wrongfully detained, the State Department said Friday.

“The United States has been working to secure Marc Fogel’s release for some time. We have long called for his humanitarian release and tried to include him in the August 1 deal, but were unable to. The Secretary determined Marc is wrongfully detained in October," the department said in a statement.

The designation traditionally shifts supervision of a detainee's case to the office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, a State Department office focused on negotiating for the release of hostages and other Americans classified as being wrongfully detained in other countries.

-- snip --

The State Department considers a range of factors in deciding whether to designate an American jailed in a foreign country as wrongfully detained, including if there's credible information that the person is innocent. The factors also include if they are being held for the primary purpose of influencing U.S. policy or securing concessions from the U.S. government.

Officials confirmed Friday that Fogel had now received that designation.

So, which consideration is it that moves the Biden Admin to act now? Does it think Fogel is innocent? Or does it think he's being used to either influence U.S. policy or to secure concessions from the USG? Those seem to be the only considerations that would make the Robert Levinson Act apply.  

I can't imagine which it is because they are all equally absurd. He's plainly guilty on the charge of smuggling weed, and he is not the kind of important character whom the Russians would try to barter for in policy or other concessions. 

It would not be disparaging to him if we consider Mr. Fogel to be a routine consular case of a citizen imprisoned abroad. Push for humanitarian parole from his 14-year sentence, but that's all. 

Why in the world should we give his family false hopes of a negotiated release now? 

 

Magdeburg Christmas Market Mass Killing: Where Were the Merklesteins?

“Bollards [vehicle barriers] had been put up to protect the area but one local politician noted that they did not extend all the way around the perimeter, with a gap left for a tram line.” https://t.co/TbylitLURl

— TSB (@TweetingTSB) December 21, 2024

"Merklesteins," or Merkle stones, is the name the German press gave to the vehicle barriers that appeared around Christmas markets after a vehicle attack was committed at the Berlin market in 2016.

For a couple years after that I did annual posts on the increasingly efficient and often aesthetic Merklesteins that went up in German cities and elsewhere. See this one, for instance, or click on the Merklestein tab below. 

Those barriers had gotten pretty good, and they ought to have precluded more vehicle attacks. So I was highly interested in how the attacker yesterday was able to drive into the Magdeburg market seemingly with no problem.

The answer is in today's UK and German news: it was because the Magdeburg city authorities left a gap in the market's anti-ram barrier perimeter that the attacker could exploit. 

From today's:The Telegraph:

Local authorities in Magdeburg are giving a press conference. The main theme has been how the killer was able to drive his car past a security perimeter.

A police official said that the killer exploited the fact that gaps had been left in the perimeter to allow for ambulances to get in and out.

City officials have said that gaps between bollards were there as an escape route for emergency services but that they were guarded by the police.

“I think our security concept is good because it was coordinated,” said Ronni Krug, a spokesperson for the city hall.

“The case we are now discussing here is one that we could not have anticipated in terms of its dimensions and that perhaps could not have been prevented.”

Questions had been raised after the attack about why there were such big gaps between bollards at entrances to the Christmas market.

That the gaps "were guarded by police" presumably means that one or two officers stood next to them and maybe waived high visibility 'stop' signs. Evidently it does not mean that the gaps were covered by active anti-ram barriers that police could lower in the event that an emergency vehicle needed access but which would otherwise remain up. 

I find it appalling that city hall spokesman Ronni Krug would say that yesterday's attack could not have been anticipated or prevented. All European nations have security and anti-terrorism professionals who could have seen that perimeter vulnerability and would indeed have anticipated that attack. After all, the attacker saw and did just that.  

Not to be too hard on spokesman Krug, but he exemplifies the naïve mindset of the instinctively law-abiding citizen and Bürgermeister. The mindset of yesterday's attacker will perpetually be a mystery to them. 

That's a problem because someone who does not share at least some of the mindset of his adversaries is simply out of place doing vulnerability assessments. Yesterday's attacker could have told spokesman Krug and the rest of the crowd at city hall that their security concept was really no good at all if they wanted to stop vehicle ramming attacks. 

City hall - and not just the one in Magdeburg - is paying the price for not employing someone who will look at potential targets from their would-be attacker's point of view. 

   

Hillary is Guilty (193 Classified Emails According to DOJ), Stop Pretending Otherwise

This is so tiring. Just read the DOJ’s report: https://t.co/dKIgotXZPW https://t.co/sBvAkoM9tx

— TSB (@TweetingTSB) December 9, 2024

And she got away with it scot-free. Isn't that enough? 

Now stop the whining and just hope that FBI Director Patel will be too busy elsewhere to look into that cold case.

 

The Bureau Meets Bollywood (Or, There's a New Sherif in Town)

 

This is exactly how I imagine Kash Patel's first day as Director of the FBI will go.

J. Edgar Hoover eat your heart out! This new era will have more flamboyant costumes and sizzling romance than even you could have imagined.   

Massive Deportation: "Action on Day One" and Step-By-Step

This version of shock-and-awe might work a lot better on illegal aliens persons not lawfully present in the U.S. than it did on Iraqis thirty-three years ago.

The Mail on Sunday has a terrific piece of reporting (here) that I don't see elsewhere in the news.  

The Mail on Sunday has spoken to those in Trump's inner circle who say his immigration plans have been top of the list in discussions held at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home, in the days since his crushing victory. 

One lawyer familiar with the talks told me: 'Donald is preparing for a series of moves against illegal immigrants, which he says will cause 'shock and awe'. Kicking out illegals was the mainstay of his run for the White House and he knows people expect action on Day One. They will get it.' 

- snip -

'Step One' of the deportation programme is to target undocumented immigrants with ties to criminal gangs. It is dubbed 'Operation Aurora', after the Colorado town where members of the ruthless Venezuelan street gang Tren de Aragua turned apartment complexes into bases for drug dealing and prostitution. 

- snip -

'Step Two' is to expel more than one million people whose applications to remain in the US have been denied and who are on the deportation list. Then the round-up of the millions of remaining illegal immigrants will begin as part of 'Step Three'. Places of work, including farms and meatpacking plants, will be subject to raids (or 'targeted enforcement activities') – something the American Civil Liberties Union calls 'vile, unconstitutional and un-American'. 

- snip -

Trump is said to be planning to merge ICE and Border Patrol – the federal law enforcement agency – into one 'uber' organisation of 88,000 people and will release millions in central funding to add 40,000 new agents and 8,000 extra immigration court judges to expedite expulsions. 

- snip -

Intriguingly, Trump is exploring paying 'third-party safe countries' to take non-violent applicants while their visas are being processed. The scheme is similar to Rishi Sunak's now abandoned Rwanda plan, in which migrants who crossed the Channel illegally were to be flown to Rwanda to seek asylum there instead.

That last part is particularly intriguing to Brits, since their own government chickened out on the same plan a while ago. 

So The Trumpening will go eyeball to eyeball with the ACLU and cheap labor lobby governors early next year, and we'll see who blinks first.

DOJ and FBI Face the Gaetz of Hell

Rodin didn't know the half of it.

Here's the question of the day, who monitors or oversees the FBI?:

Within the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI is responsible to the attorney general, and it reports its findings to U.S. Attorneys across the country. The FBI’s intelligence activities are overseen by the Director of National Intelligence.

Say, isn't that incoming DNI Director the same former Congressional Representative and U.S. Army reservist that Hillary Clinton keeps calling a Russian agent, one who was personally dispatched by Putin to frustrate Hillary's presidential ambitions? And the same one who was placed on the TSA 'Quiet Skies' watchlist so her boarding passes would have the quad-S marking that got her a thorough airport shake-down whenever she flew? Yes, she is! 

If confirmed, she'll be TSA's boss's boss, and able to find out just who did that to her. Revenge like that is practically poetic.    

And the incoming Attorney General might be another former Congressman, one who was the subject of a futile but still years-long effort by DOJ to find any substance to allegations of his trafficking in underage women? (Even unsubstantiated sexual allegations are always the best kind to stir up a Washington scandal.) He is!

I'll bet those two each have a list of grievances with both DOJ and its subordinate Bureau, and if confirmed they'll be in the perfect position to double-team their former accusers. The accusatory institutions, anyway, if not the individuals, who will most likely decide to retire before The Trumpening 2 gets truly underway.     

The appointment of Gaetz, in particular, will bring on much hypocritical weeping and wailing over transgression of the apolitical norms that DOJ has respected at least since Watergate. 

But, did they really respect those norms? Obama's AG, Eric Holder, for instance, couldn't have found those supposed norms if he'd hunted for them with a GPS and a flashlight.

Maybe the appointment of Gaetz will turn out to be just superior trolling, a shot across the bows. Maybe even a misdirection intended to hide the REAL strike that will come from the new Department of Government Efficiency? Taking away half their personnel and facilities in the cause of efficiency would bring retribution to DOJ and FBI just as well as a head-on clash with AG Gaetz.

Either way, this will be the kind of spectacle that you could sell tickets to. 

The Trumpening 2: A President Unburdened By What Has Been

No errors found. https://t.co/cQgp7IO5VG

— TSB (@TweetingTSB) November 10, 2024

Kamala could only wish to be so unburdened.

The Trumpening 2: Sweep the Leg

Both President Biden and SecState Blinken have made the ritual pledges of full and cheerful cooperation with a peaceful transfer of power to their literally-Hitler opponent, who won the election, and his bitter-clinger-deplorable-Nazi-fascist-garbage supporters. You may think their sincerity is questionable.

Meanwhile, Trump is really not waiting to take power, as witness his phone call to Ukraine's President Zelensky - in which Z was surprised to find Elon Musk was on the line - and to some other heads of state. 

Trump is functionally the 47th President already, and that shouldn't be a surprise since, after all, he's been the President before.

This week, State announced that it has opened its presidential transition office, that workspace where incoming Presidents can do the staff work necessary to prepare for the transition that will come in a little over two months. However, as of COB Friday, the incoming administration has not contacted the transition office. 

That's because Trump has been operating his own transition office in private and on his own dime for some time now. Outsiders don't quite know what's happening inside. 

That secrecy is a foreshadowing of how he'll likely handle the transition of State and other agencies to his administration's control. They'll find out when it hits them.

One thing is not a secret: The Trumpening 2 will not be merciful to federal employees who try to resist the new administration.  

 

    

American Driver Sentenced in UK Crash But Mystery Deepens: Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Interpreter?

Finally, our International Man of Mystery has been sentenced in that year-ago UK car crash to which he's plead guilty at every court appearance he's ever had.  

A typical news article is here:

An American who fled Britain after a car crash that left a mental health nurse seriously injured drove like an “arrogant young boy racer” the night of the collision, a judge told him.

Issac Calderon was sentenced to 32 months in jail after losing control of his Honda Accord following a high-speed overtaking manoeuvre and crashing head-on into a Mercedes being driven by Elizabeth Donowho in July 2023. 

Sentencing Calderon on Thursday, Judge Martin Jackson said: “Seven days before this accident you had bought a car and had not taken the trouble to make sure that it carried insurance.

- snip -

The judge was told Calderon worked for an American company in Peterborough as an interpreter and that he said to police after his arrest that he “played follow the leader” when he was driving.

Calderon’s lawyer told the court that he was not in the UK “as an American army official of any sort” and was driving along the A4103 between Worcester and Hereford to meet a friend he had met through online gaming.

Other UK news accounts added a little more on that lawyer's statement: ‘He was here working as an interpreter for an American company in Peterborough,’ [Patel] told the court. ‘He wasn’t going to see anyone from the SAS or anything of that sort.’

We further learned that "Calderon had been married for a couple of years, Mr Patel said, and was earning money in the UK to send back to his wife and his parents ... It was also said that his injuries meant he had to get a taxi to his workplace, costing £100 per day, before he was ‘let go’ when the firm found out about his involvement in the accident, and then left homeless ... He was then faced with a ‘stark choice’ and took up a contractual entitlement to a flight back to the United States paid for by the unnamed firm."

The Crown Prosecution Service's public statement is brief and dull, but here it is FYI.

This info fills in some of the picture of our Agent Double O Aspergers. Married man, devoted son, car owner, gamer, and employed by an unnamed American company as an interpreter. 

With him being a good Tejano from Humble, Texas, I'll accept that he can speak Spanish. But, well enough to be a certified interpreter? Maybe not.  

I see there are some distribution centers in the region in which the crash occurred. Perhaps he worked on import-export to customers in Spain? 

The mystery continues. 

  

UK FCO Minister Talking Trash About Trump

One should not get into a trash talking contest with Trump. https://t.co/vndxrn3xxn

— TSB (@TweetingTSB) November 6, 2024

 

Post Election, the View From a Broad

Batshit Bonkers Britain: GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA pic.twitter.com/xckWpKlABD

— Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) November 6, 2024

'Allo, 'allo, 'allo, what's all this then? 

She's right, ain't she? Hapless PM Starmer and his Foreign Minister Lammy look like they'll be among the first victims of The Trumpening. 

A lesson could be learned there, like, don't trash-talk potential Presidents before they are well and truly out of power. 

Their German counterparts could benefit from our UK ally's mistake there.

Try Napoleon, Not Hitler

I just wish the academics who talk about “fascism” day in and day out could expand their alarmist repertoire even a tiny bit, if only to make the discourse less boring. Here’s one suggestion (just to help articulate a view I emphatically do *not* share): a much more interesting…

— Adrian Vermeule (@Vermeullarmine) November 5, 2024

Exactly! Napoleon III makes a far better bogey man for a late-stage Republic. Fascism is passé, and we've moved on. 

Overshadowing the Only Political Party to Come in Third in Each of the Last Three Elections

A single squirrel is going to have more impact on the American political system than the official Libertarian Party has in the last 50 years.

— John Ekdahl (@JohnEkdahl) November 2, 2024

Leave Us to Our Free Election (Pericles, Prince of Tyre: II,iv)

Now, THIS is what a Presidential election year's final stretch should look like: dead even for the average of all polls as of yesterday (according to Projects 538). 

For this last week of campaigning the public opinion pollsters will turn honest, since it is only their last pre-election poll that they'll be judged by. Before then, we should treat polls as efforts to shape opinion. At least, the free kind of polls that get publicly reported. The good poll results that you have to pay for are presumably closer to reality all along.

I'm probably in a small minority here, but I do love it when, as the days tick down, desperation strikes and pressure reveals character. Were it up to me, every year would be election year. 

  

As The Trumpening Gets Closer, Hillary Sees Hitler Yet Again

Hillary's latest all-my-enemies-are-Hitler screed is so profoundly boring because she, like most other U.S. politicians for the last eight decades, has been seeing Hitler wherever she looks. 

The WaPo ran a nice piece ten years ago about some of those prior occasions. 

That guy has been everywhere some actual or would-be President has wanted to see him: in Russia, Iraq (on multiple occasions), Serbia, Syria, Vietnam, even Nicaragua. It's a regular Where's Waldo? for lazy pols and voters who lack any real historical appreciation. 

Honestly, she ought to try seeing some other looming figure of all-encompassing evil now and then, just for a change of pace. 

And her Madison-Square-Garden-as-Hitler's-playground is an even more ridiculous stretch. MSG has held every type of political event you can imagine including Democrat and Republican nominating conventions. 

If you want to hate on MSG do it because Billy Joel played 150 concerts there. But give the Hitler fantasies a rest. 

Harry Dunn Sequel Review: Slow Pacing, Terrible PR, Doom Production

He may look dumb but that's just a disguise 

He's a mastermind in the ways of espionage 

Ballad of the Uneasy Rider - Charlie Daniels (1973) 

Well, what do you know? The extradition came off at long last, so our International Man of Mystery may actually appear in a UK court someday. 

Yet, the UK tabloid reaction to this stunning advance of Justice has so far been oddly subdued, it seems to me. No national celebration either, such as attended every bit of the original Harry Dunn production. 

  

The Daily Mirror had as much detail as any, here, and at least one quote I haven't seen elsewhere. 

Both public and press seem fundamentally bored with our Agent Double O Aspergers, despite how the tabloid build-up of this case featured endless repetition of the terms 'intelligence soldier,' secret services, Official Secrets Act, SAS, and much more of an equally lurid appeal.  

Have the West Mercia Police lost all appreciation of the desperado they have taken in? I hope they're keeping him under constant observation in their most Mission Impossible type escape-proof cell, because I shudder to think what capabilities an 'intelligence solider' from the Texas National Guard could bring to bear on a rinky-dink police lock-up. (Check out the original movie in the Rambo franchise if you want details.)  

By the way, how unusual is it for the U.S. to agree to the extradition of a citizen to the UK for criminal prosecution? Not unusual in the least, it turns out. In fact, with the sole exception of the immune diplomat in the Harry Dunn case, the U.S. has approved every single extradition request from the UK. 

You can find this statement in the record of a question period in Parliament from 2020: 

"Since the [current extradition] treaty came into force [in 2007], the United States has never refused to extradite somebody sought by the U.K." 

That sounds definitive. So then, you might wonder, why does the Dunn family's spokesman and brain trust keep saying the opposite? From the Daily Mirror's story:

He said: “We all know America is highly reluctant to extradite nationals and we have had to move heaven and Earth to make that happen. It is a minor miracle to see the defendant back in our jurisdiction.” 

That's easy. Because telling self-aggrandizing lies is what he does. Expect plenty more.

Another quote from the Daily Mirror, this one from a prosecutor in the case, is just as self-aggrandizing if not exactly a lie.    

Prosecutor Kate Leonard said: “We worked closely with the US to ensure our extradition request was expedited.”

Really? Lets look at the timeline of key events. The crash occurred in July, 2023. The American driver skipped a UK court appearance and became a fugitive in December 2023. He was taken into custody in the U.S. on an extradition warrant in July 2024, and a leisurely ten weeks after that, in October 2024, he was picked up by West Mercia Police and returned to the U.K. His next court appearance is scheduled for November 2024. 

She calls that "expedited?" Hey, I work for a government too, but that is some slow-rolled process.

 

Frankly it's getting to be a struggle to maintain my interest in this one. Here's hoping our Texas National Guardsman will break bad and shake things up in that lazy low drive land.

 

Hillary Is No Stranger To Paranoid Conspiracy Mongering

It's no surprise, but Hillary Diane Rodham (and sometimes) Clinton is again raging about mis-dis-and-mal information, all of it targeted on her personally.

“I anticipate there will be a full-court press in October,” she said. “The digital airwaves will be filled. And why does that matter? Because the press that is pro-Trump anyway — oftentimes stories are put on digitally that then are picked up by, let’s say, at Fox and others. And then those stories are stories, so the mainstream press reports on them, and so that story then takes on a life of its own.”

Readers who were around during the Clinton Administration may recall that Hillary was exactly as paranoid then about unseen media influencers as she is now. 

Don't take my word for that. Please see this 2014 article from the left-wing Mother Jones that served up a retrospective about Hillary's fabulistic exposure of the "communications stream of conspiracy commerce" that bedeviled her back then:

In a 1995 internal memo, President Bill Clinton’s White House Counsel’s Office offered an in-depth analysis of the right-wing media mill that Hillary Clinton had dubbed the “vast right-wing conspiracy.” Portions of the report, which was reported on by the Wall Street Journal and other outlets at the time, were included in a new trove of documents released to the public by the Clinton presidential library on Friday.

The report traced the evolution of various Clinton scandals, such as Whitewater and the Gennifer Flowers affair allegations, from their origins at conservative think tanks or in British tabloids, until the point in which they entered the mainstream news ecosystem. Making matters even more complicated was new technology, the report explained: “[E]vidence exists that Republican staffers surf the internet, interacting with extremists in order to exchange the ideas and information.” The administration even had a name for the process: “The Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce.”

You can read the whole crazy memo here. 

If Trump wins, I expect Hillary to go full Captain Queeg, complete with a strawberry statement: 

Ahh, but the stories! That’s – that’s where I had them. Fox laughed at me and made memes, but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with – digital logic – that Russians with a key to the Trump voters DID exist! And I’d have PRODUCED that key if they hadn’t’ve conceded the election on me! 

Really, that won't be far to fall from the state that she's in now.

Feds Indict NYC Mayor Who Accepted Too Much Turkish Delight

 

After much leaking and teasing by the U.S. Attorney's office, the feds have finally indicted the Mayor of Fun City, as they semi-sarcastically called it when I was growing up, and some of the charges are no fun at all. You may read the details here. 

I especially recommend page 48, wherein after the FBI found out the Mayor's personal cell phone was locked, the cyber-conscious Mayor explained that he had installed a new and more complex password on the phone just as soon as he learned the FBI wanted to seize it. You see, he wanted to make sure any evidence on the phone was preserved against accidental or deliberate deletion. He's a responsible citizen, you understand.

But then, despite his good intentions, wouldn't you know it but he forgot the new password! Well, he's a very busy man with a lot on his mind.    

The role played by Turkey in the Mayor's downfall is rather a surprise, especially since the Turks began lavishing gifts on him back when he was a lowly Borough President. They must be good judges of rising talent. 

And what did Turkey get back in exchange for all those gifts, bennies, and cash they passed to Mayor Adams? Mainly, it seems, they got to take some shortcuts on the new Consulate General they were building in Manhattan. For instance, they got to skip a final fire inspection. 

You know, I wonder if someone on the Turkish CG's staff shouldn't do some time in one of their Midnight Express prisons for that. Public corruption is all good clean fun between friends until you let it interfere with life safety. 

    

David Bowie's Top 100 Books -

I've always liked David Bowie's songs, movies, and his whole personality, so I'm distressed that it was only today I learned he once provided an interviewer with a list of his top 100 books.

Evidently, Bowie actually did read books. That list is not some airhead celebrity book club thing. And I think there are some surprising choices, especially along kinda cultural conservative lines.

Start with the number three choice: Room at the Top, the 1959 novel that kicked off an 'angry young man' wave of British novels with working class heroes rebelling at the social hierarchy. We have an overload of alienated young men again today, only today they don't seem to be producing quality literature. 

I'll overlook the Howard Zinn dishonest embarrassment because RATT and some of the other picks are just that good.

You expect to see classics like 1984 and The Iliad, so no surprise there. But Faulkner's As I Lay Dying? How did a modern English guy develop a taste for Southern Gothic? 

Seeing The Master and Margarita makes we wonder if there might be a Mick Jagger tie-in, since that book inspired The Stones' Sympathy For the Devil, the most historically literate rock song of all time.

Lolita is another one that might have a backstory. Most people who have heard of that book have no idea it has a political subtext. If you're one of them, then I highly recommend the memoir Reading Lolita In Tehran, or just watch this interview. 

Darkness at Noon, The Waste Land, and The 42nd Parallel are works of the political and cultural right, hands down. Really, Bowie was risking social banishment by including those on his list. Good for him.

Rebel Rebel, you continue to surprise and delight. 

  

She's Looked at Policing Speech From Both Sides Now

I really have looked at life and love "from both sides now."

Read an exclusive excerpt from my new memoir on @cbsnews.https://t.co/Snyq1QGEGa

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 16, 2024

Posts and posts of dis info
Mocking memes and hurty mots
And Trumpy GIFs from right-wing bros
I’ve looked at X that way
But now they only break the law
They need indictments, gags galore!
So many things I would have done
But civil rights got in my way

You can depend on Hillary to blurt out loud what more emotionally balanced politicians will keep to themselves and their inner monologues. 

Why stop at censorship when you can arrest your political foes?

Isaac Calderon Extradition Update is Rumor-Only For the Moment

“Now, the US Department of Justice has said officers from West Mercia Police can come and collect Mr Calderon.” But no one from the West Mercia Police or the DOJ is named or quoted, so that news is based on nothing but a shady lawyer’s mind reading. https://t.co/K3C8K3106k

— TSB (@TweetingTSB) September 12, 2024

The story is so far being carried only by BBC Hereford and Worcester, which sounds a bit provincial, and the bigger media are all standing back. 

 

Good for them, since BBC H&W is going out on a limb by trusting the Harry Dunn family's spokesman / advisor / PR hack and all-around hustler. Evidently, he professes to know the hopes of the West Mercia Police and also the mind of the U.S. Justice Department, which is rather more than a prudent journalist should take his word for. Until sources that have names and speak for the record say that extradition has been approved, don't believe it.    

Moreover, when it comes to extradition the U.S. Secretary of State, and not the Justice Department, has the sole authority to approve the removal of a U.S. citizen to a requesting country. The family's spokesman - so far - seems to lack insight into the SecState's mind. 

Extradition will probably be approved eventually, but nothing in the BBC H&W's story is credible. 

   

OBO Remakes Mexico

 

Or at least, our diplomatic premises there. See the current State Magazine for an article about how my good friends have done a clean sweep of our old and decrepit embassy and consulates there and replaced them with the new stuff. 

 

It's Their Mind and They'll Think What They Want

Think before you post. https://t.co/sgqCErb4AC

— GOV.UK (@GOVUK) August 8, 2024

Since we're all officially admonished to THINK (which used to be the IBM corporate slogan, IIRC, long before it became a verbal bludgeon of Britain's police bigwigs) let's spare a thought for the UK's lower-class sort that is the target of all this oppressive Nanny-Statism. 

What do you suppose they're thinking? And might it be a massive load of anger and resentment directed squarely at their 'betters'?  

 

But baby (Baby) 

Remember (Remember) 

It's my life and I'll do what I want 

It's my mind and I'll think what I want 

- It's My Life (1965), Eric Burdon and The Animals 

Eric Burdon had the best male voice in '60s pop music, if you ask me. And his best songs had a working class edge that, if you further ask me, the British need to recover today more than ever before.   

Check out the opening lyric: It's a hard world to get a break in / all the good things have been taken. 

Does that not speak to the Brits we've seen pushing back at the national leaders who are hosting all the illegal entrants they can find while arresting Brits for speaking out about it on line?

There is a long and storied tradition of Anglo-Saxon rowdyism which is triggered by unfair treatment, and it doesn't take much imagination to see such treatment happening all over the UK today.     

So the top of UK society warns the lower class to THINK before they speak, or else face vaguely sinister "consequences." Well, once the lowers have thought about it long enough, the uppers just might see that threat blow up in their faces.  

 

 

Britain's Future Looks Fabulous Under PM Starmer, But Only If You're Into Glitter

Starmer gets manhandled by a 140 lbs protestor. pic.twitter.com/Laglrji3cr

— Dane (@UltraDane) August 18, 2024

The Britain's Future branding raises this pathetic incident to the level of comedy, which is a great improvement over what it would be otherwise, such as 'unbelievable security failure' or 'PM's girly-man reaction to personal assault.'

Not auspicious, to say the least. The UK's top security detail allowed a protestor onto the stage with Starmer and then stood by stunned for ten long seconds while - better, whilst - the loony deployed an IGB (Improvised Glitter Bomb) on their protectee and then held hands with a clearly non-consenting Starmer.

It's hard to say which offense is the worse in today's UK: the exuberant public speech or the unwanted physical intimacy.

Harry Dunn Sequel Finally Gets Close to Show Time

That goofy kid cracks me up, but - seriously - don't lend him your car.

Well, a judge in Texas has now certified that Agent Double O Aspergers can be extradited to the UK. That sends the matter to the executive phase of extradition, and to the final decision of the SecState. 

Assuming Blinken agrees to extradite, there will be a trial date set in the UK, and if we have learned anything from following this story, it is that the UK takes a very long time to process this stuff. 

I'll skip ahead a bit and just assume that our hapless driver will be convicted. Upon that, I expect attention to shift to the international prisoner transfer program which creates the possibility that our International Man of Mystery could be sent back here to serve his UK-imposed sentence in a U.S. prison. 

I'll further predict that Team Harry Dunn will work with the few crumbs of speculation and misreporting that it has to insist that this sad sack is actually a master spy, and that he was at the center of some monstrous U.S. plot to do something unimaginably sinister when he caused a car crash last year. 

They'll have fun with that although, frankly, it will be a big, big, step down from their glory days of White House visits and media attention from years past. 

It's a sequel, after all, and those usually disappoint the audience.

      

EU-crat Breton Might Have Acted Without EU Approval When He Sent That Letter to Elon Musk

The European Commission has denied that its internal market commissioner had approval from Ursula von der Leyen to send the letter, with one EU official saying, 'Thierry has his own mind and way of working and thinking'. https://t.co/DYfoEV9slL pic.twitter.com/y2kisI2b9J

— Financial Times (@FT) August 13, 2024

That's Elon Musk on the left, opposite a childless cat lady, it appears. 

The FT's headline and story say that EU Commissioner Breton overstepped his authority and sent that cautionary letter to Musk without first getting EU clearance. 

However, that is refuted by this sentence in the body of the report:

Breton is empowered to oversee enforcement of the Digital Services Act and can communicate independently with companies.

So, who knows? 

Whether it was with or without approval, Breton made an empty threat towards Musk and X, and empty threats always lead to embarrassment. I say an empty threat because Musk has the means to connect the EU's 500 million consumers with direct internet access from his network of satellites if he wishes, bypassing the EU and other authorities completely. 

To misquote the most famous line from the great Hilaire Belloc poem The Modern Traveller, "whatever happens, he has got the Starlink gun and we have not."

Much more to come on this, I hope.

When Boyhood's Fire Was In Their Blood ...

Petrol bombs being thrown at the PSNI in Derry.
pic.twitter.com/u43z4bQ5XD

— Toby 🇮🇪 (@ThoughtsToby) August 10, 2024

Check out those four-foot tall Oirish insurgents tossing petrol bombs at Northern Ireland police vehicles. Don't miss the bag of chips that appears towards the end. 

This is some sort of children's crusade, unlike the riots we saw last week elsewhere in the UK. 

I can only imagine that they're following in the footsteps of their fathers and grandfathers, who may have handed down some experience at making firebombs. 

There is plenty of old inspiration there.

Don't Tell Me Who I May or May Not Insult! Reform UK's Section 5

Rowan Atkinson on free speech. The Christian Institute spearheaded the Reform Section 5 campaign to get the word ‘insulting’ removed from Section 5 of the Public Order Act, as part of the Crime and Courts Bill. Full video: https://t.co/fSoJ0o7PEf pic.twitter.com/NqQCdJsTRZ

— The Christian Institute (@christianorguk) June 1, 2023

Until today I was not aware of the Reform Section 5 movement. Now, I'm its biggest fan. 

I particularly like Atkinson's point that the "insulting words" test does not even require that there be a victim, just some expression that someone in power - who exactly? - deems insulting. 

He arrives at the same solution the U.S. Supreme Court did in 1931: the 'counterspeech doctrine' that says the solution to speech you don't like is more speech not suppressing other speakers. 

That's how free societies behave. Anything less is simply an all-purpose excuse to lock up any party whom the police disfavor.

 

Not a Crazy Idea - Give Political Refugee Status to Opinionated Brits

Could we see refugee and asylum requests from Brits who are persecuted for their political opinion?

“Refugee status or asylum may be granted to people who have been persecuted or fear they will be persecuted on account of … political opinion.” Immigration and Nationality Act https://t.co/ZYo5dmdU8O

— TSB (@TweetingTSB) August 9, 2024

I say, Defund the Thought Police! But until then, what would prevent the U.S. from extending refugee or asylee status to Brits who are oppressed by their government for the expression of political opinion?

Here's what opinionated Brits are facing today. I'd say it qualifies them for refugee status.
 

Think before you post! 📲✋ Content that incites violence or hatred isn't just harmful - it can be illegal.

The CPS takes online violence seriously and will prosecute when the legal test is met. Remind those close to you to share responsibly or face the consequences. pic.twitter.com/5gxnUH02yw

— Crown Prosecution Service (@CPSUK) August 7, 2024

Actually, that post is misleading, or as the Crown Prosecution Service itself would probably say, it is disinformation. The law in question extends to content that is "threatening, abusive, or insulting," which goes well beyond inciting violence or hatred. 

All those terms are fundamentally subjective anyway, so the CPS is threatening to prosecute Brits for expressing political opinion that some unnamed party in the CPS dislikes. 

Moreover, by threatening to extradite offenders from abroad, the CPS threatens to take its oppressive nanny state to everyone everywhere. 

Well, the 1st Amendment stands between me and the CPS, so I feel pretty safe. Over here, we still adhere to the constitutional 'counterspeech doctrine' which holds that the best remedy to combat harmful speech is “more speech, not enforced silence” (Justice Brandeis, Stromberg v. California (1931). But our British cousins have no such protection. 

Maybe a significant number of Brits will now notice that constitutions work a lot better when they are written down, as their Chartists knew. 

But until then, why should we not welcome mouthy political refugees from the UK to come over here and breathe the sweet air of freedom?

Some Progress On the Harry Dunn Sequel, As Houston Court Hears Extradition Case

Isaac Calderon, international man of mystery

Many months ago we heard that the UK has requested extradition of a U.S. citizen who caused a traffic accident in which a British women was injured, an event that raised misguided comparisons with the Harry Dunn case. 

Finally, this week there was evidence that an actual extradition proceeding is really happening. Specifically, there was an initial hearing in a Houston court in which the defendant appeared and the court heard evidence provided by the UK police force that investigated the accident.

Here's the Sky News story about the court appearance: US soldier admits vaping before crash that left UK nurse unable to walk, extradition documents reveal. 

The nonsense starts with the term "soldier." The defendant is reportedly a member of the Texas Army National Guard, which is a one-weekend-a-month-and-two-weeks-a-year kind of thing. (Someone should explain to the UK press that the NG is our equivalent to their Territorial Army.) But the UK press and social media will cling to anything that makes this simple traffic accident by a private U.S. citizen into a machination of the U.S. government, and especially of its covert intelligence world.    

Agent Double O Aspergers might seem a very unlikely candidate to be a mastermind of espionage, but for fans of Team Harry Dunn, he'll do. 

The nonsense escalates from there, with the terms "Official Secrets Act," "intelligence solider," and "Secret Service" freely sprinkled all over news stories about the case. Ominously, they speculate he might even have been visiting the SAS base in Herefordshire, which suggests he was up to bilateral skullduggery.  

As for the real 23 year-old Texan behind all the media nonsense, we learned at the court hearing that he told the UK police he was vaping while driving too fast (70 MPH in a 50), struggled to use an unfamiliar stick shift, and was passing cars despite being perpetually confused by those foreign markings on British roads. He also said he was driving on personal business, and did not have insurance. 

I'm still curious about who owned the car. I'm assuming it wasn't a rental, given the lack of insurance.  

Well, it doesn't look good for our Texas Guardsman. However, there is still a long legal road to travel before he can be sent back to face UK justice. 

 

Courtesy of the U.S. Justice Department, here's a summary of the process that must be followed before a U.S. to UK extradition can take place:

“During the judicial phase, a court will determine whether the extradition request meets the requirements of the applicable extradition treaty and the law of the requested country. If so, the judicial authority will rule on whether the person may be extradited. If the judicial authority rules that the person may be extradited, the case enters the executive phase, in which an executive authority of the government of the requested country, usually a Prime Minister, Minister of Justice or Minister of Foreign Affairs (for the United States, the appropriate executive authority is the Secretary of State), will determine whether the requested country will surrender the wanted person in extradition.”

Both the judicial and the executive phases may be appealed.

All that process might just take us beyond the inauguration of the next POTUS, and hence, the next Secretary of State. 

 

The mystery grows.  

"Help Me, Help Me, Aaron Sorking, You're My Only Hope!"

The present moment calls for the fastest-talking re-write man in the business, if Hillary is going to make a convincing case at the Democratic nominating convention next month. 

By an amazing coincidence, that man has a piece in the NYT today.  

Sure, she and Bill immediately made a ritual endorsement of Kamala right after the Biden news broke, but NEVER count the Lady Macbeth of Little Rock out, not when political death is on the line. 

Get a preview of how she might handle the opportunity Joe Biden just handed her here: what would happen in The West Wing's parallel universe?

Drone Strike Near U.S. Embassy Branch Office Tel Aviv, EBO Escaped Damage

A residential building in Central Tel Aviv was struck by an Iranian UAV launched from Yemen, leading to at least one civilian casualty and many injured.

We will continue operating to better protect Israelis against terrorism on all fronts. pic.twitter.com/SqGdcDRVT7

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) July 19, 2024

You've no doubt seen the news reports by now. The most reliable reports indicate the aerial vehicle was an enhanced (longer range) Iranian-made drone, and it was launched from Yemen. The drone was not detected by Israeli warning systems, it struck a good 400 feet from the EBO, killing one resident and injuring several others.

Bottom line: unmanned aerial vehicles are the new conventional weapon, they are largely impractical to defeat, and a responsible nation will ensure that its diplomats have a reasonable degree of protection against them through emergency preparedness, training and orientation of its personnel, and by hardening its diplomatic premises to the extent feasible. 

  

Election 2024: Looks Like I Picked the Wrong Week to Quit Sniffing Glue

This week is the Republican's national convention, but far bigger news is coming from the Democrat side where the drama continues practically hour by hour as they try to sort out, at this late date, who'll be on their ticket.

Efforts grow to convince Joe Biden to drop out, but - C'mon Man! - he's having none of it.     

Rep. Jared Huffman of California, who in recent days had organized fellow Democrats to pressure the DNC to delay nominating Biden, called the party’s new, slower timeline [for the nomination of a candidate] “a positive step,” but said it was not likely to alleviate concerns about Biden’s viability. 

-- snip --

“Many of us are perplexed that he continues to say he’s either tied or winning in the polls,” Huffman said. “We don’t understand what factual universe that is coming from.” 

Avoiding delusion is a good thing. especially when it's self-delusion. Good luck with that, Rep. Huffman, maybe you'll succeed where no one else has so far. And plenty of Democratic leaders have tried, up to but not (as of today) including Obama. 

FYI, you can find the factual universe of adverse polling results for Biden at this NYT's article: Biden Called ‘More Receptive’ To Hearing Pleas to Step Aside. 

Tick ... tick ... tick ... 

Senator 'Gold Bar Bob' Menendez: 9 Terms in Congress, 16 convictions

My least favorite corrupt public official was elected to six terms in the House (1993 to 2005) and three in the Senate (2006 to 2018), thirty years in all. Justice finally caught up with him today, which was in spite of his inspired defense that he was only doing his job when he traded official actions for cash, gold, and other gratuities. 

Sadly, he's probably sincere in that claim, and I bet a lot of his congressional colleagues think the same thing. 

Maybe justice will get around to those others someday. For today, a jury found Menendez guilty of all 16 counts in his indictment. He'll appeal, of course. 

Meanwhile, we'll see how hard the Senate pushes for his expulsion, which is the only way for it to be rid of him because he'll never resign. He's even running for reelection as an Independent!

If the voters of New Jersey can spare Bob for a few years, the Bureau of Prisons would like to have a talk.

Now Revealed: "Otherworldly Humanoid" Visited Pentagon, Eisenhower, Nixon, in 1957

But they still sent Francis Gary Powers up in the U2? That’s scandalous. https://t.co/mcNjHZs6XV

— TSB (@TweetingTSB) July 8, 2024

I can't vouch for the investigative journalism of this Gaia outfit, but that lady does seem extremely well informed about the aliens, even the fact that the female ones wore flat shoes. That's the kind of detail that communicates believability. 

Biden Explains Away That Debate Performance to ABC News

https://t.co/ACvJIvEqhH https://t.co/mg9FjSRT4Q

— TSB (@TweetingTSB) July 7, 2024

Biden doubles down on debate explanations in ABC News exclusive interview.

"Yeah, look. The whole way I prepared, nobody's fault, mine. Nobody's fault but mine. I-- I prepared what I usually would do sitting down as I did come back with foreign leaders or National Security Council for explicit detail. And I realized-- partway through that, you know, all-- I get quoted the New York Times had me down, ten points before the debate, nine now, or whatever the hell it is. The fact of the matter is, what I looked at is that he also lied 28 times. I couldn't-- I mean, the way the debate ran, not-- my fault, nobody else's fault, no one else's fault."

If you ask me, John Belushi did it better.

Open Labs Poll "Panic Inducing" For Democrats

It's bad news all around for Biden after that debate. In particular, this leaked polling memo ‘shook Democrats in their boots,’ says former Obama adviser.

The polling memo from Open Labs, leaked to Puck News, showed how President Biden’s support was sliding following his panic-inducing debate performance Thursday.

The Open Labs memo noted the “largest single-week drop” in Biden’s vote share since it began horse-race tracking in late 2021, which it noted came as Biden already faced a “challenging” election landscape before the debate.

You may wonder exactly who is doing all this leaking. My guess is that the White House screwed up by publicly blaming the handlers and aides who tried to prepare Biden for that debate. His piss-poor performance must be their fault, goes the blame-shifting logic. 

And what's the defensive response of desperate low-level Washington apparatchiks when their careers are threatened? To leak whatever they know that's damaging to their enemies. Every leak has a purpose.  

Whoever leaked it, this one result alone is devastating:

In Pennsylvania, the state that now represents the tipping point, POTUS trails Trump by 7.3pp.

There is much more, and none of it good for Biden. Read it all here.

It's That Time in the Election Cycle When We Turn On Third Party Candidates

NEW: I asked @RobertKennedyJr about the Vanity Fair allegations that he posed with a picture of a barbecued dog and to respond to the sexual assault claim

He says the picture is of a GOAT. Re: assault allegation he didn't deny it & brought up his rambunctious past pic.twitter.com/WpJ9sRVc19

— Saagar Enjeti (@esaagar) July 2, 2024

To be very clear - he did not / not eat a dog. It was a goat. On everything else he is guilty as charged, but not the dog. Get that straight. 

Vanity Fair just took a big swing at Robert Kennedy Jr., who is polling somewhere below ten percent, but that's enough to make him a possible spoiler in swing states. 

Here it is: RFK Jr.’s Family Doesn’t Want Him to Run. Even They May Not Know His Darkest Secrets, and here's a quote from the seventh paragraph in that fairly long article.

After initially denouncing his candidacy last summer, most of the 105 Kennedy relatives —including Bobby’s eight siblings, the largest branch of the family—had hoped his campaign would collapse under the weight of his many bizarre claims and alliances with anti-vax cranks and Trumpworld figures like Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson. Instead the family has played defense, going public only when Kennedy’s statements went so far out of bounds they had no choice, like when he suggested COVID was “ethnically targeted” to spare Jewish and Chinese people; or his claim that anti-vaxxers suffered worse oppression than Anne Frank (a statement sister Kerry called “sickening and destructive”); or when he claimed there was a mysterious alternative shooter in the death of his father in 1968 (going so far as to interview Sirhan B. Sirhan in prison and proclaim him innocent); or that the CIA was possibly involved in the assassination—claims that caused deep pain for his siblings.

Mind you, all that comes before they get to RFK Jr.'s old heroin addiction and his molestation of a young woman he employed as a nanny for his children. 

RFK Jr. blows all that off as old news, which, I have to say, it is. No less damning for being long known, though, and almost certainly a lot of it is new news to many voters, especially those who weren't even born yet when RFK Jr. was neck-deep in all the traditional Kennedy family vices.

"I had a very, very rambunctious youth," said Kennedy ... So, you know, Vanity Fair is recycling 30-year-old stories. And, I'm not, you know, going to comment on the details of any of them, but it's, you know, I am who I am," he added.

He was age 45 when he wouldn't stop feeling up the nanny, but then I suppose Kennedys have a prolonged adolescence. 

Well, you know, all that appalling history is, you know, who he is, and, you know, he isn't going to look so good to some voters before, you know, they decide between him and the other choices on the ballot.

Two Maldives Ministers Arrested For Attempted Sorcery on President Muizzu

 

I take no position on the guilt or innocence of the two sorcery suspects, although one of them is a woman and therefore perhaps the more likely to be in touch with the forces of the netherworld. 

We outsiders must let the Maldivian justice system run its course, while we respect the cultural differences involved here. Should the two suspects be adjudicated and found guilty, then let justice be done. If the Maldives is anything like Saudi Arabia when it comes to witchcraft trials, the guilty parties will not get the chance to clog up the courts with endless frivolous appeals.    

As a minor functionary of [the foreign affairs department of the Washington DC area's largest employer], my main concern with the Maldives - my only concern, really - is how to get a U.S. diplomatic presence set up there as quickly as possible in compliance with the wishes of Congress. 

Frankly, if sorcery can offer any help with that goal, I am willing to suspend my disbelief and give witchcraft a try. 

   

Fuhgeddaboudit! Trump One Point Up Over Biden in New Jersey Poll

There's a new Coefficient Poll of New Jersey voters that has Trump favored over Biden 41% to 40%, with RFK Jr at 7% and the rest undecideds. 

Well, considering that NJ has a large Democrat advantage in voter registrations, that result is likely either a fluke or the reaction of voters still stunned by that CNN debate performance. 

Either way, the link above includes many, many, crosstabs with in-depth opinion results. Please peruse for your use and enjoyment. 

----------------------------------

A robotic-sounding voice does a good breakdown of that expression for the benefit of the New Jerseyisms-impaired. 

RIP Kinky Friedman

Kinky Friedman stepped on a rainbow at his beloved Echo Hill surrounded by family & friends. Kinkster endured tremendous pain & unthinkable loss in recent years but he never lost his fighting spirit and quick wit. Kinky will live on as his books are read and his songs are sung. pic.twitter.com/sIXnoglSby

— Kinky Friedman (@FriedmanKinky) June 27, 2024

Nice Presentation on New London Embassy, Where Physical Security is Achieved By "Sleight of Hand"

 

Ah, the Crystal Fortress! 

Was a glass cube on a small site located in a former industrial zone worth a billion dollars? I'd say that it was, at least for those who appreciate architectural understatement in their diplomatic premises. 

Please enjoy this quick program about "how the US built its most hi-tech and controversial embassy," and join me in my high regard for OBO.

Assange Flies, Stella Cries, Bitcoin Buys Fancy Rides

 

Well, it was a sudden ending to Assange's long and mostly self-imposed incarceration in the UK, but at last he has flown the coop. 

His fans will be happy to know that an anonymous donor has paid $500,000 in Bitcoin for his exec jet ride from prison to the Land Down Under. I'm still unclear about who chartered the jet and why the trip would cost so much, but c'est la vie, which is French for "forget it Jake, it's Chinatown." 

Once back home Assange was joyously reunited with his lawyer, prison squeeze, and now wife, Stella, and their two little kids. Frankly, she bothers me. 

At age 41 she's spent the last 13 years working for Assange and carrying on a forlorn prison romance. That would be okay in the plot of a Hallmark Channel movie, but with the two kids she'll have to be a lot more hardnosed with Assange now that he's free. 

First of all, he does not strike me as the family man type who likes to stay at home at night, will get a steady job and help with the kids. Far from it. 

Not to mention that the two rape accusations against him which the Swedish government dropped a few years ago could, possibly, be brought back now that Assange would lack the excuse that he feared extradition to the U.S. if he were to surrender himself to Sweden.   

She, on the other hand, does strike me as the 'waiting outside the prison gates' type that is so familiar to correctional institutions the world over. Those romances typically don't survive freedom, or not for very long.   

  

Good luck to you, Mrs. Assange, but I hope you'll have something to fall back on if it turns out that marriage isn't really his bag.

 

First Contingent of Kenya Police Arrive in Haiti, Just 2,100 Troops Short of a Full Deployment

It's not exactly The 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, but perhaps an almost equally epic 400 Kenyans at Haiti. 

At least it is if you listen to Kenya's President Ruto at his sending-off ceremony for The 400.

"This mission is one of the most urgent, important and historic in the history of global solidarity. It is a mission to affirm the universal values of the community of nations, a mission to take a stand for humanity," [Kenyan President William] Ruto said.

Wow. The most urgent, important and historic in the history of global solidarity?? That is a whole lot to live up to, especially when all that responsibility is placed on a small force of police. 

Read the whole Reuters report here. 

The key points from Reuters:

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) -The first planeload of Kenyan police arrived in the Haitian capital on Tuesday to launch a peacekeeping mission in the Caribbean country that has been ravaged by gang violence- just as deadly protests overwhelmed security forces at home ... while in Nairobi police opened fire on demonstrators trying to storm the parliament, with at least five protesters killed, dozens wounded and sections of the building set ablaze.

That attack on Nairobi's parliament was not related to the Haitian deployment but was instead over new taxes.

As a line of Kenyan police streamed out of the plane on Tuesday morning, a small crowd, mostly airport personnel, greeted them on the tarmac. Some of the helmet-wearing officers unfurled a Kenyan flag and danced in a group.

The Kenyan police are expected to be joined by officers from Jamaica, the Bahamas, Barbados, Chad and Bangladesh, which together are slated to form a 2,500-strong peacekeeping mission funded primarily by the United States.

They danced? U.S. forces don't dance much on deployments, so maybe that's a cultural exchange we might look into. 

I can see the wisdom of that. Could be it's just a good idea to celebrate hopeless missions up front, considering that no one will feel like dancing once they are over and the cost has been paid. 

What costs are they? The ancient Greek poets knew. 

Go, tell the Spartans, thou who passest by, 

That here obedient to their laws we lie.

U.S. Consular Officer In El Salvador Not a Big Fan of Tattoos

Consular nonreviewability was upheld. https://t.co/xHb0UsadZ5

— TSB (@TweetingTSB) June 21, 2024

So there is a limit to a U.S. citizen's rights, and the Supreme Court just found it. 

Please be advised that there is no right to bring foreign national spouses into the country, and no, the USG does not need to go into a lot of detail about it when they cite concerns about the criminality of said spouse. 

The adjudication of Department of State v. Muñoz turned on the matter of tattoos, specifically, those tats on the Salvadoran husband of the respondent, an LA civil rights lawyer. 

The tattoos actually sound pretty modest from the details given in the opinion, but still, our consular staff in Salvador must be experts on tat interpretation, and I will back their judgement as to the undesirability of admitting someone with those inkings into the USA.

'Glock Switches' Are the Reality That Washington Thinks Bump Stocks Are

Here's some alarming data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives about a current surge in simple and cheap devices that can be used to convert common semi-automatic firearms to full-auto operation. See the link below.

According to a 2023 report by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, 5,454 guns with machine-gun conversion devices were taken into ATF custody at crime scenes between 2017 and 2021, a 570% increase in the five-year period. Between 2012 and 2016, the ATF seized 814 guns equipped with such devices, according to the report.

The hitch, politically speaking, is that those devices ATF is seizing are not 'bump stocks,' and it's solely bump stocks that various Congressmen are at the moment focused on banning ever since the Supreme Court affirmed that they are currently legal since they do not modify a firearm's operation. 

No, these are so-called 'Glock switches,' which are bits of plastic or metal that replace the slide cover plate on the back of a striker-fired pistol - not only Glocks, but "Glock" has become by now the generic name for any kind of pistol that might be featured in a rap video - and thereby override the sear and allow for continuous fire so long as there are rounds in the gun. 

In other words, it does exactly what half of Congress and one third of the Supreme Court think that bump stocks do, but they don't.  

Here's a typical news report on Glock switches. 

If you are very, very, old, and oriented to crime and gun news, you might recall that in the 1970s there was a panic about cheap semi-auto pistols, often knockoffs of the MAC-10, that could be fired full-auto if the operator knew how to manipulate a button on the slide. They were generically known as "choppers" and were the weapon of choice for drug dealer shootouts in places like Miami, i.e., big MAC attacks. 

The Glock switch has brought those days back. Just google the term and you'll see what I mean. 

The path is open for some Congressional and Executive Branch action on machinegun conversions, or at least it could be, if only the politicians who are most engaged on this topic would drop their bump stock fixation.