Friday, March 29, 2024

Boeing Doubles Down on Stupid...


Daniel Greenfield, "New Boeing CEO Candidate Stephanie Pope Pushed DEI"
Woke leads to broke

There’s plenty of drama at Boeing. The DEI-ridden corp looking for a new CEO appeared to have settled on current COO Stephanie Pope.

That’s now in doubt for various reasons, but there’s every reason to believe that Pope won’t turn around a culture that had drifted away from engineering excellence and into corporate identity politics pandering.

Consider Pope’s touting of its DEI report last year while using woke buzzwords.

I couldn’t be prouder to share that Boeing recently placed #12 on DiversityInc.’s annual list of top companies. DiversityInc. requires data-based outcomes to be included, which demonstrates we’re not just promising a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion – we’re holding ourselves accountable. One way we’re doing so is through our annual Global Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (GEDI) Report. The GEDI 2023 report was just issued today, and while we still have more work to do, we’ve made progress.

Boeing certainly made progress in all the possible wrong ways. The company became more woke while undermining its competence, reliability, and credibility.

Woke leads to broke and doubling down on the same failed leadership won’t turn Boeing around.
Cultural Capitalism Uber Alles!
DEI - A Corporate Charity Priority - Jobs as Social Justice

The State of American Idiocracy's Denial

 Barbie's Ken: "...but he CAN'T win in the General..."

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Zeihan on the Revolution of Warfare in Ukraine

It's not just the "tech"... it's how you use it.
It also sounds like a terrorism opportunity wet-dream

Stay for Assange!

A UK court ruled on Tuesday that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange will not be extradited to the United States for now.

The UK court is requesting assurances from the US around Assange’s First Amendment rights, and that he would not receive the death penalty by the US government for leaking classified documents.

This is strange, since the Biden family can hold and release classified material to business associates but not Julian Assange?

If the US fails to give assurances, Assange, an Australian citizen, will be able to appeal his extradition in May.
A U.K. court has ruled that Julian Assange will not be immediately extradited to face charges in the United States, giving the U.S. government three weeks to “offer assurances” that the American justice system will abide by several specific tenets in its handling of the WikiLeaks founder’s case.

The British court said Assange “has a real prospect of success on 3 of the 9 grounds of appeal” he has argued. Specifically, the court demanded that U.S. justice officials confirm he will be “permitted to rely on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution (which protects free speech), that he is not prejudiced at trial (including sentence) by reason of his nationality, that he is afforded the same First Amendment protections as a United States citizen and that the death penalty is not imposed.”

The court said that if those U.S. government assurances are not given within the three week timeframe, Assange will be granted leave to file a new appeal in the U.K. with further hearings for representations to be made by both parties.

“Mr. Assange will not, therefore, be extradited immediately,” the court said in its judgment on Tuesday.

The Key Bridge is GONE! Port of Baltimore is CLOSED!

The major Beltway Bridge over the Patapsco River has collapsed after being hit by a large cargo ship, sending vehicles travelling on the bridge tumbling into the water.

A four-lane bridge carrying the Interstate-695 over the mouth of Baltimore harbour collapsed in the early hours of Tuesday morning, around 0130 EST (0530GMT). Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott has said he is aware of an “incident at the Key Bridge” and that emergency services are on scene.

UPDATE 0800EST — Pictures from the scene

While we’ve had livestream footage from the scene all morning, photographers have been slow to get a view of the damage at the mouth of the Port of Baltimore. Here are the best so far, illustrating the enormous level of damage caused, blocking the river.


The Baltimore Fire Department says the collision, which saw several vehicles which were travelling on the bridge plunge into the Patapsco River, is a ” developing mass casualty event”. Department director of communications Kevin Cartwright told the Associated Press: “This is a dire emergency… Our focus right now is trying to rescue and recover these people.”

The crew of the ship and the two pilots aboard — port authority professional navigators who help bring large ships in and out safely — are unharmed.

Livestream footage of the river shows a large container ship, identified as the Singapore-flagged container ship MV Dali, striking head-on one of the piers supporting the central span of the bridge. This immediately brings down that central span and the southward span towards Fort Armistead. Just a moment later, the northward span, left unbalanced by the loss of the centre, also collapses.

This Last video "tells the tale" of torque:

Crew Attempts to Stop the Ship Caused the Crash?  "Full Astern!" torque once the Main Generator power came back on?
Wind was NOT a factor (1:30 am just to RIGHT of dark Vertical Blue line labelled "Tuesday")

Bridging the Racial Divide?

...or Ridiculing and Exploiting a Noble Race?
Alain Locke on “The New Negro” (1925)
Alain Locke, a leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance, was a distinguished academic—the first African American Rhodes Scholar, he obtained a Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard—who taught at Howard University for 35 years. In 1925, he published an essay, “Enter the New Negro,” that described an African American population busy seeing “a new vision of opportunity.”

In the last decade something beyond the watch and guard of statistics has happened in the life of the American Negro and the three norns [goddesses of Norse mythology] who have traditionally presided over the Negro problem have a changeling in their laps. The Sociologist, The Philanthropist, the Race-leader are not unaware of the New Negro but they are at a loss to account for him. He simply cannot be swathed in their formulae. For the younger generation is vibrant with a new psychology; the new spirit is awake in the masses, and under the very eyes of the professional observers is transforming what has been a perennial problem into the progressive phases of contemporary Negro life.

Could such a metamorphosis have taken place as suddenly as it has appeared to? The answer is no; not because the New Negro is not here, but because the Old Negro had long become more of a myth than a man. The Old Negro, we must remember, was a creature of moral debate and historical controversy. His has been a stock figure perpetuated as an historical fiction partly in innocent sentimentalism, partly in deliberate reactionism. The Negro himself has contributed his share to this through a sort of protective social mimicry forced upon him by the adverse circumstances of dependence. So for generations in the mind of America, the Negro has been more of a formula than a human being—a something to be argued about, condemned or defended, to be “kept down,” or “in his place,” or “helped up,” to be worried with or worried over, harassed or patronized, a social bogey or a social burden. The thinking Negro even has been induced to share this same general attitude, to focus his attention on controversial issues, to see himself in the distorted perspective of a social problem. His shadow, so to speak, has been more real to him than his personality. Through having had to appeal from the unjust stereotypes of his oppressors and traducers to those of his liberators, friends and benefactors he has subscribed to the traditional positions from which his case has been viewed. Little true social or self-understanding has or could come from such a situation.

We have not been watching in the right direction; set North and South on a sectional axis, we have not noticed the East till the sun has us blinking.

… The mind of the Negro seems suddenly to have slipped from under the tyranny of social intimidation and to be shaking off the psychology of imitation and implied inferiority. By shedding the old chrysalis of the Negro problem we are achieving something like a spiritual emancipation. Until recently, lacking self-understanding, we have been almost as much of a problem to ourselves as we still are to others. But the decade that found us with a problem has left us with only a task. The multitude perhaps feels as yet only a strange relief and a new vague urge, but the thinking few know that in the reaction the vital inner grip of prejudice has been broken.

With this renewed self-respect and self-dependence, the life of the Negro community is bound to enter a new dynamic phase, the buoyancy from within compensating for whatever pressure there may be of conditions from without. The migrant masses, shifting from countryside to city, hurdle several generations of experience at a leap, but more important, the same thing happens spiritually in the life-attitudes and self-expression of the Young Negro, in his poetry, his art, his education and his new outlook, with the additional advantage, of course, of the poise and greater certainty of knowing what it is all about. From this comes the promise and warrant of a new leadership.

… The day of “aunties,” “uncles” and “mammies” is equally gone. Uncle Tom and Sambo have passed on, and even the “Colonel” and “George” play barnstorm roles from which they escape with relief when the public spotlight is off. The popular melodrama has about played itself out, and it is time to scrap the fictions, garret the bogeys and settle down to a realistic facing of facts.

First we must observe some of the changes which since the traditional lines of opinion were drawn have rendered these quite obsolete. A main change has been, of course, that shifting of the Negro population which has made the Negro problem no longer exclusively or even predominantly Southern. Why should our minds remain sectionalized, when the problem itself no longer is? Then the trend of migration has not only been toward the North and the Central Midwest, but city-ward and to the great centers of industry—the problems of adjustment are new, practical, local and not peculiarly racial. Rather they are an integral part of the large industrial and social problems of our present-day democracy. And finally, with the Negro rapidly in process of class differentiation, if it ever was warrantable to regard and treat the Negro en masse it is becoming with every day less possible, more unjust and more ridiculous.

… If in our lifetime the Negro should not be able to celebrate his full initiation into American democracy, he can at least, on the warrant of these things, celebrate the attainment of a significant and satisfying new phase of group development, and with it a spiritual Coming of Age.

Source: Alain Locke, “Enter the New Negro,” Survey Graphic 6 (March 1925), 631–34. Available via National Humanities Center (http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/migrations/text8/lockenewnegro.pdf).
Langston Hughes on the Greatest Sins of a Black Man... Wearing White Face, Assimilating into America, and Acting White.

Will the Polemics Never End?  IS There Any Middle Ground of Meden Agan?

Saturday, March 23, 2024

Elon Musk, the Latest Techno-Feudal Earl

Trump Social, Branded Techno-Feudal Earldoms for Sale

Alfred Lord Tennyson, "Battle of Brunanburh" (excerpt)

ATHELSTAN King,
               Lord among Earls,
               Bracelet-bestower and
               Baron of Barons,
               He with his brother,
               Edmund Atheling,
               Gaining a lifelong
               Glory in battle,
               Slew with the sword-edge
               There by Brunanburh,
               Brake the shield-wall,
               Hew’d the lindenwood,2
               Hack’d the battleshield,
Sons of Edward with hammer’d brands

The Daily Wire's Jews for Jesus Earldom Initiates Its' Own Inevitable Decline/ Fall

Why Tweet "Christ is King"? Is Candace Owens an Emancipated and Soon to be Rising Countess?

On the Deep State Mission Creep from a Counter-Terrorism Program into a Counter-Populism Program

Apparently Democrats on line feel so "harassed" that they are calling on the Government to save them from exposure to Trump populism (especially Trump's Tweets) and the Deep State has un-Constitutionally agreed to be their censors

Thursday, March 21, 2024

Drag Race = the New Black Face.


Mary Cheney: Why is drag ‘socially acceptable’ and blackface isn’t?
Mary Cheney wants to know why it isn’t “socially acceptable” for a white person to “put on blackface and act out offensive stereotypes of African-Americans” if drags queens are allowed to imitate female stereotypes?

If a man can dress up as a woman to entertain an audience, then why can’t a white person get on stage in blackface, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney wondered aloud Thursday in a private Facebook post obtained by CNN.

“Why is it socially acceptable – as a form of entertainment – for men to put on dresses, make up and high heels and act out every offensive stereotype of women (bitchy, catty, dumb, slutty, etc.) – but it is not socially acceptable – as a form of entertainment – for a white person to put on blackface and act out offensive stereotypes of African Americans?” Cheney wrote in a post on Thursday her private Facebook page. Some of Cheney’s posts appear to only be visible to those who are in her Facebook network.
“Shouldn’t both be ok or neither?” Cheney wondered.

Cheney, who is openly gay and married, emphasized that she was not drawing any comparisons between white people painting their faces black and transgender individuals, only men who entertain in drag. Cheney said the question was sparked after seeing an ad on TV for the upcoming season of Logo’s RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Asked via Facebook message whether she’d like to clarify her comments, Cheney gave a brief response: “Seriously?”

It’s not the first time Cheney has taken her views to Facebook.

Cheney took to Facebook in Nov. 2013 after her sister Liz, who was campaigning for Senate in the Wyoming GOP primary, reaffirmed her opposition to same-sex marriage.

“Liz – this isn’t just an issue on which we disagree – you’re just wrong – and on the wrong side of history,” Cheney wrote then on Facebook.

Mary Cheney obviously doesn't know about the DNC's unwritten rule (and double standard) for blacks... "thou shalt speak no ill of the negro (unless he/ she has an (R) after his name)."

Climate, the Movie

Scary, the Daily Hype
Red ALERT, Will Robinson!  Red ALERT!

Meet the New Boss in Haiti....

...and How Long Before America follows Haiti?

Sunday, March 17, 2024

Democrats Can't handle the Truth

It would make them break their unwritten rule, "NEVER speak ill of minorities unless they have an (R) after their name."

...and there are no R's in cannibalism.

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Conservative Sensitivity Training

Chesterton compares the difference between people who bore others versus people who get bored very easily, and he noted that it's the people who bore others that actually have higher qualities. They retain enthusiasm about subjects, happiness, and interest. They've got that spark for Life still going. The boor is stronger, and more joyous, than we are. He is a demigod, nay, he is a God. For it is the gods who do not Tire of the iteration of things. To them, the Nightfall is always new, and the last rose is as red as the first.

An Iteration:

 
In “The Little Prince,” the fox wants to be visited by the little prince always at the same hour, so that his visit becomes a ritual. The little prince asks the fox what a ritual is, and the fox replies: “Those also are actions too often neglected. … They are what make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours.”

Rituals can be defined as temporal technologies for housing oneself. They turn being in the world into being at home. Rituals are in time as things are in space. They stabilize life by structuring time. They give us festive spaces, so to speak, spaces we can enter in celebration.

As temporal structures, rituals arrest time. Temporal spaces we can enter in celebration do not pass away. Without such temporal structures, time becomes a torrent that tears us apart from each other and away from ourselves.

Frank Zappa on "Democracy"

Eat = Consume

Yellow Snow = Yellow Journalism

Yellow journalism was a style of newspaper reporting that emphasized sensationalism over facts. During its heyday in the late 19th century (read: TODAY!) it was one of many factors that helped push the United States and Spain into war in Cuba and the Philippines, leading to the acquisition of overseas territory by the United States.

Friday, March 15, 2024

Why Now? What's Different?

Russia is not longer the USIC's focus.  A Cold War with China is brewing...?  

Or is it to protect Israel from criticism? (Excerpt from video:)
Here's the Wall Street Journal's explanation: "Jacob Hellberg, a member of a congressional research and advisory panel called the US China Economic and Security Review Commission has been working on building a bipartisan bi-coastal Alliance of China Hawks, united in part by their desire to ban Tik Tok." "It was slow going until October 7th. The attack that day in Israel by Hamas and the ensuing conflict in Gaza became a turning point in the push against Tik Tok, Helberg said."

So, this was a bill that was having a great deal of difficulty until October 7th. October 7th, of course, was the day that Hamas attacked Israel setting off this horrific War that's still ongoing into its six month of Israel destroying Gaza. Why would October 7th, a conflict between Hamas and Israel, what would that have to do with suddenly taking a bill ostensibly about China, and that was slow going, and then suddenly accelerating it?

Here's the Wall Street Journal quote: "the attack that Day in Israel by Hamas and the ensuing conflict in Gaza became a turning point in the push against Tik Tok."

So, that's the answer so far from The Wall Street Journal. What changed in the last few months was October 7th. The Hamas attack on Israel, the ensuing Israeli attack on Gaza. The article goes on people who historically hadn't taken that position on Tik Tok became concerned with how Israel was portrayed in the videos and what they saw is an increase in anti-semitic content posted to the app.

I just I have to stop here, again, because I just want to make sure this point gets across. And the Wall Street Journal is by far not the only credible Outlet reporting this. People who historically had not really cared about Tik Tok before that's why it wasn't making any progress in Washington suddenly became concerned with how Israel was portrayed on Tik Tok.

That is why it picked up so much steam in Washington. Because a lot of Democrats, a lot of Republicans, who did not think that Tik Tok Banning Tik Tok was a priority suddenly realized there was one platform that was allowing a lot of criticism of this foreign country called Israel, and when they saw that they said, "Wait a minute, Tik Tok actually does seem to be a problem to the United States. Not because of China, or anything having to do with the Chinese Communist party, but because it seems like there's a lot of criticism of Israel taking place on Tik Tok. And that is what we can't allow."

Now again this is not my saying this. This is reporting from The Wall Street Journal about why suddenly this bill has mad its way through Congress.

Anthony Goldblum, a San Francisco based data scientist and Tech executive, started analyzing data that Tik Tok published in its dashboard for, and buyers showing the number of times users watch video with certain hashtags. He found far more views for videos with Pro Palestinian hashtags than those with pro-israel hashtags. Now, what is the crime that Tik Tok was found to have committed in the last several months that suddenly caused the bipartisan obsession with punishing it, and even Banning it? Here's the Wall Street Journal: "there were far more views for videos with Pro Palestinian hashtags than those with anti-israel hashtags."

Remember when Nikki Haley said, in it seemed like such a laughably Preposterous assertion, that the more, that for every 18 minutes or whatever it was that you spend on Tik Tok, you become 32% more anti-semitic? She was responding to studies like these that show that a lot of people who use Tik Tok, more people who use Tik Tok were Pro Palestinian then pro Israel.

Now, the last time I checked the American Constitution and the current Supreme Court interpretation of it, as an American citizen you are actually allowed to be more Pro Palestinian than pro-Israel if you want to be. One of your rights as an American citizen is to take sides in a particular foreign conflict, or to not take sides at all. And people on Tik Tok were taking sides. And they were taking side the side of Palestine more than they were taking the side of Israel.

Now that is not a surprise. And the reason it's not a surprise is because polling data has shown for a long time that Young Americans including Young American Jews are becoming increasingly critical of Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians. You don't have to like that, but that is the reality. And since Tik Tok is a social media platform where more young people go to express their political beliefs and find political Community, it stands to reason that Tik Tok as a place where more young people are, would have more Pro Palestinian content than pro-Israel content, whereas social media Outlets that tend to cater to older people, like Facebook, probably you would expect to find the reverse.

[...]

Now "The Economist" in March reported something quite similar, which was an article entitled: "Will Tik Tok still exist in America?" And it began picking up on this sentiment in Congress as well. "As Congress starts the clock on a ban, the app must consider its options." And they, too ask the question of what suddenly changed?: "The Proposal gained momentum partly as a consequence of disquiet over the app's handling of misinformation on anti-semitic content following Hamas's attack on Israel in October. Tik Tok's effort to stall the bill failed spectacularly."

So, those are two major credible media Outlets telling you that the reason why this bill suddenly picked up steam is not because of concern about China, but because of concern about protecting Israel. Protecting Israel, not from foreign actors, but from the views of American citizens. Being concern that Tik Tock permits American citizens who are critical of Israel to freely Express their views about Israel and Palestine.

The executive director of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblat, who long before October 7th has been a crusader for censorship of things he doesn't like. He was urging Fox News to fire Tucker Carlson for years, went on to Morning Joe and essentially made clear that the concern of the pro-Israel Lobby in the United States, as that there are too many social media Platforms, in particular, the ones catering to a younger generation, that are allowing too much anti-Israel content in the United States.

Here's what he told Morning Joe: "Speaking frankly about it we've been on the show we've talked about Instagram, we've talked about Twitter or X, and you've seen my back and forth with Elon Musk, but we need to talk about Tik Tock. Tik Tock, if you will, it is the is the 24/7 news channel of so many of our young people and it's like Al Jazerra on steroids amplifying and intensifying the anti-Semitism and the anti- Zionism with no repercussions. I've got to ask Joe..."

Is it a coincidence that the Anti-Defamation League went on to MSNBC and announced that their main concern was Tik Tok and the fact that Tik Tok is allowing too much Israel anti-Israel speech?
Or is it what I believe to be even more true... to protect politicians from criticism over their support of policies that the American people don't support.   Like "Israel v. Palestine". Or "Trump v. Deep State"?  Or of Ukrainian war policy critics... 

...but MOSTLY, I think that control of Tik Tok is desired specifically to protect Democrats from their own Leftist idiots boycotting and primary challenging them by erecting a politically controlled social media censorship monopoly.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Deep States Hotbeds - Georgetown/ Kalorama

Obama Residence in Kalorama
Free Julian Assange.  Pardon Edward Snowden.  Disband the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI).  Break-up and Re-Compartmentalize The Department of Homeland Security.  Fire and Prosecute Civil Servants and Contractors who censor the media and internet.  And move the Nation's Capitol to Wichita, KS, but only re-hire and relocate Civil Servants GS-15 and below.

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

It Won't be Long...

...for Ukraine or Republicans.  Thanks for poking the bear, Victoria Nuland!
Meanwhile, another Russia Hawk Bites the Dust!

Maybe THIS is ultimately the Republican Never-Trump brain-trust plan (RICE) to get Ukraine it's Funding - Surrender House Control to Democrats!

DEMSpeak or just plain DUMBSpeak?

Build Back Better Storms Haiti!
The Apotheosis of the Clinton Criminal Enterprise Achieved!

Monday, March 11, 2024

Forcing a Ukraine Vote in the House

Plots to End-Around the Speaker and House Freedom Caucus on Ukraine Funding... although they could just pass HR 2, instead, but compromise isn't in the UniParty's blood.

It's Time to Adjust the Data Again!


Plato, "Cratylus"

SOCRATES: Nor yet can they be known by any one; for at the moment that the observer approaches, then they become other and of another nature, so that you cannot get any further in knowing their nature or state, for you cannot know that which has no state.

CRATYLUS: True.


SOCRATES: Nor can we reasonably say, Cratylus, that there is knowledge at all, if everything is in a state of transition and there is nothing abiding; for knowledge too cannot continue to be knowledge unless continuing always to abide and exist. But if the very nature of knowledge changes, at the time when the change occurs there will be no knowledge; and if the transition is always going on, there will always be no knowledge, and, according to this view, there will be no one to know and nothing to be known: but if that which knows and that which is known exists ever, and the beautiful and the good and every other thing also exist, then I do not think that they can resemble a process or flux, as we were just now supposing. Whether there is this eternal nature in things, or whether the truth is what Heracleitus and his followers and many others say, is a question hard to determine; and no man of sense will like to put himself or the education of his mind in the power of names: neither will he so far trust names or the givers of names as to be confident in any knowledge which condemns himself and other existences to an unhealthy state of unreality; he will not believe that all things leak like a pot, or imagine that the world is a man who has a running at the nose. This may be true, Cratylus, but is also very likely to be untrue; and therefore I would not have you be too easily persuaded of it. Reflect well and like a man, and do not easily accept such a doctrine; for you are young and of an age to learn. And when you have found the truth, come and tell me.

Saturday, March 9, 2024

TikTok: THE Gap in USIC's Total Information Control (TIC) Program

Adam Mersereau, a one-time Marine, writing for National Review Online, defined total war like this:
The kind of warfare that not only destroys the enemy’s military forces, but also brings the enemy society to an extremely personal point of decision, so that they are willing to accept a reversal of the cultural trends that spawned the war in the first place. A total war strategy does not have to include the intentional targeting of civilians, but the sparing of civilian lives cannot be its first priority. … The purpose of total war is to permanently force your will onto another people group. Limited war pits combatants against combatants, while total war pits nation against nation, and even culture against culture.

Hence the need for Total Information Control. 

How Legit are Maryland Elections?

Jack Gleason, "Challenging Election Irregularities in Maryland"
United Sovereign Americans, a nationwide group dedicated to fair and honest elections, has joined with Maryland Election Integrity, LLC, in filing a lawsuit in Maryland Federal Court against the Maryland State Board of Elections with Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher presiding.
“This action seeks declaratory and injunctive relief from deficient voter registration rolls leading to violations of Federal and state laws, the certification of results from a provably flawed, inaccurate, and obscure process outside the view of impartial witnesses or the public, including the use of voting systems in Maryland that are believed to have void EAC certifications in violation of federal law, and the refusal of the Maryland State Board of Elections to comply with Public Information Act (PIA) requests and Federally required transparency.”
The suit cites multiple federal laws regarding election conduct, including Article 1 Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, Sections 1 and 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, the National Voter Registration Act, and the Help America Vote Act.

The lawsuit states:
“Meticulous analysis of the official Maryland State Voter Registration Database reveals a minimum of 79,392 current apparent registration violations…The analysis revealed 1,699 instances of duplicate registrations, 25,084 instances of registrants with questionable inactive status, 3,366 instances of active registrations without a certified US Post Office mailing address, 5,680 instances of active registrants who moved at least 4 years ago, 605 instances of registrations with no residential address, 296 instances of active registrants with a nonstandard address, 1,218 instances of active registrants who are deceased, 883 instances of age discrepant registration (younger than 18 or older than 115), and 40,518 instances of questionable registration date.”
They continue:
“In sum, the voting system error rates are exponentially above the maximum allowable error rates. Inaccuracy and the specter of fraud have irretrievably damaged the reliability and credibility of results. The Maryland State Board of Elections dismissed these concerns without any meaningful review or response and intends to administer and certify Maryland’s 2024 general election under the same inaccurate conditions. Despite mandatory statutory language requiring current and accurate voter rolls, which shall include only the names and registration information of eligible citizen voters, and Maryland law specifying processes to do so, Maryland has failed to keep voter rolls accurate.”
They conclude:
“Plaintiffs allege that voter rolls are highly inaccurate, error rates on the voting systems exceed the maximum allowable error rates, voting systems were not certified correctly, machines have been used that have VOID EAC certifications, large numbers of blank ballots were cast, and the MDSBE is unlawfully withholding evidence of such. This has caused abridgement to their right to vote “[a]nd the right of suffrage can be denied by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen’s vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise” Reynolds v. Sims, (377 U.S. 533). The right to vote is paramount “[e]specially since the right to exercise the franchise in a free and unimpaired manner is preservative of other basic civil and political rights, any alleged infringement of the right of citizens to vote must be carefully and meticulously scrutinized.” Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964). Inaccurate voter registration practices have led to voting system error rates well above the statutory threshold causing dilution of eligible voter’s votes. Use of the ES&S Voting Systems in a noncompliant manner has resulted in dilution of Plaintiff’s votes and has resulted in an impaired election process resulting in concrete harm to Plaintiff’s rights to vote. Denial of Plaintiff’s PIA requests resulted in Plaintiffs not being able to access information in which they are entitled.”
They are seeking an injunction from Judge Gallagher to force the Maryland State Board of Elections to keep accurate voter rolls and enjoining them from certifying any future elections unless voter rolls are updated, registration records are corrected, and the entire voting process is reformed to follow all applicable federal and state laws. They also seek the decertification of the ES&S EVS 5.2.0.0 electronic voting system currently in use.

Finally, they ask the court to establish a Special Master to guide the Maryland State Board of Elections, among other things, to ensure changes are implemented prior to the November 2024 election to verify voters are U.S. citizens, and the ballot custody process is corrected and auditable.

Maryland Election Integrity, LLC, a group of citizen volunteers in Maryland, is led by Kate Sullivan and David Morsberger. They recently filed a report detailing the results of their statewide voter canvass and their examination of Maryland voter rolls.

Their canvas found 58 inaccurate records, which was 15 % of the 383 records surveyed. The Baltimore County canvass found 61 inaccurate records -- 14% of the 418 individuals contacted.

Based on their results, they calculated that the canvass percentages would equate to 5,625 apparent fraudulent votes in the Maryland 2020 general election.

The team also analyzed Maryland voter rolls and found 79,349 current apparent registration violations, 62,075 voting violations in the 2020 general election, and 27,623 voting violations in the 2022 general election.

United Sovereign Americans was born out of New York Citizens Audit, which has produced similar reports about the voter rolls in New York state for 2020 and 2022. Co-founders Marly Hornik and Harry Haury formed United Sovereign Americans to share what they’ve learned about database investigations and legal strategies to ensure fair and honest elections for our country. They now have chapters in over 25 states doing research and preparing lawsuits.

Regarding the Maryland lawsuit, Hornik said “the Maryland action is the first of many lawsuits we will be participating in to force state boards of elections to comply with clearly-defined federal laws that ensure election validity. Without trustworthy elections, the American public will have no confidence in the announced results.”

The Maryland legal action heralds a new wave of federal lawsuits targeting the sloppy conduct of elections as well as lax, or even criminal, management of voter roll databases across the country. Judicial Watch announced their own lawsuit about board of elections conduct in Illinois this Tuesday.

Friday, March 8, 2024

Narrative, Narrative, Who's Got the Narrative?

from Wiki:
Richard Siegmund Lindzen (born February 8, 1940) is an American atmospheric physicist known for his work in the dynamics of the middle atmosphere, atmospheric tides, and ozone photochemistry. He is the author of more than 200 scientific papers. From 1972 to 1982, he served as the Gordon McKay Professor of Dynamic Meteorology at Harvard University. In 1983, he was appointed as the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he would remain until his retirement in 2013. Lindzen has disputed the scientific consensus on climate change and criticizes what he has called "climate alarmism"

Thursday, March 7, 2024

London Bridges Falling Down...

Leaked communications involving high-level German government and military figures appear to confirm that British army personnel are engaged on the ground in Ukraine. An unencrypted telephone call intercepted and leaked to Russian broadcaster RT suggested British troops were helping the defending forces in the use of Storm Shadow cruise missiles the UK has supplied to help Kyiv’s war effort.

In response, the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, confirmed that there are a “small number” of British army personnel “supporting the armed forces of Ukraine”. But he added that “we haven’t got any plans for large-scale deployment”.

There have also been unconfirmed reports that British special forces personnel were operating inside Ukraine shortly after the beginning of Russia’s invasion in the spring of 2022. Again, this has not been confirmed by the UK ministry of defence.

Russia has consistently maintained that any non-Ukrainian military personnel training troops to operate weapons systems in-country would be legitimate military targets for Russia – as would the factories producing those weapons systems in third-party countries.

The episode raises some important questions as to whether training Ukrainian troops on the battlefield comprises an act of war – and whether this means Britain risks being designated a co-combatant alongside Ukraine.

Konstantin Kosachev, the deputy speaker of Russia’s federation council, was reported by Russia’s state-run news agency Tass as saying that by supplying weapons to Ukraine, Nato countries were progressing along a path towards direct confrontation. Sending troops to Ukraine, he said, “can be interpreted as the alliance’s direct involvement in hostilities, or even as a declaration of war”.

What international law says

The day after Russia invaded Ukraine, as Kyiv’s allies scrambled to find a response, it was reported that the US government was reviewing the legality of providing arms to help with the country’s defence.

Within days, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, had declared that even imposing economic sanctions would be an “act of war”. His defence ministry released a statement that if third-party countries allowed Ukraine to use their bases as a safe haven for Ukrainian aircraft, then “subsequent use against the Russian armed forces can be regarded as the involvement of these states in an armed conflict”.

Since the second world war, the laws of neutrality have been interpreted so that states can provide weapons and other support to a state unjustly attacked by a belligerent country, to enable it to defend itself. According to this definition, third-party countries would become co-combatants only if they resort to armed force against Russia.

Russia’s incursion into Ukraine has been ruled as a flagrant breach of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which prohibits the “use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state”. Russia’s war in Ukraine has been denounced as an act of aggression by the UN general assembly and the International Court of Justice.

Moreover, it is claimed that Russia has been implicated in breaches of international humanitarian law through its apparent indiscriminate bombing and other violent attacks, and crimes against civilians. This would mean that anyone supplying Russia – the belligerent in this conflict – with arms is in breach of international law.

But the question remains, if it is legal to supply Ukraine with weapons to help defend itself, would actually helping the Ukrainian military use them to hit Russian targets make the UK a co-combatant?

While the law is not settled, legal scholars believe supplying Ukraine with the means to defend itself against Russia does not in itself constitute a breach of international law – and nor does it make the UK a co-combatant. Any action by UK forces would only constitute a combat operation if these actions, carried out by UK personnel without any further action by Ukrainians, would launch a missile or any other kind of attack on Russian forces.

Risk of escalation

But there remains the question of escalation. Whatever the legal situation – and Russia has shown itself willing to ignore the rules of warfare by violating Ukraine’s territorial integrity since the incursions of 2014 and in the full-scale invasion in February 2022 – Putin and his senior ministers have regularly warned Kyiv’s western allies that their aid may constitute an escalation to which it would respond with all available means, including nuclear weapons.

Accordingly, to prevent a direct confrontation with Russia, Nato countries have been wary about the kinds of weapon they will supply to Ukraine. The guiding principle has been that western-supplied weapons should not be used in attacks against Russian territory.

But this may change. Germany has, up to now, been very reluctant to supply Ukraine with its Taurus missiles, which have a range of 500km and could be used against targets deep in Russian territory. However, recent reports suggest the German government is considering supplying these missiles to Ukraine.

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, was quick, though, to insist that “German soldiers must at no point and in no place be linked to targets this system reaches”, making it absolutely clear that Germany would not risk its involvement being interpreted as a direct act of escalation.

And despite the Kremlin’s repeated threats, it is not eager to engage Nato militarily. So, despite all the strong words being exchanged by both sides, there has been no sign that Nato and Russia will face each other on the battlefield in Ukraine – for the moment, at least.

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

The Case for War in Ukraine

So the key, I think, for Total Defense is for our elected officials president, prime minister, and parliamentarians to be honest with the population, explain the threat, talk to the population as if we are adult, and explain here's what we're going to have to do to deal with the threat. It's going to cost money. People going have to make sacrifice. But if we're serious about the threat then we're going to we're going to have to do what's required. That's the beginning of Total Defense.

We face Global challenges, Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, and I believe they're all connected. They are absolutely all connected, the Hamas attack on Israel in October, that was not a coincidence. Who benefited from that attack? Not the Palestinians. The Kremlin, because it distracted us, distracted resources. So we have to think strategically, which means we have to organize ourself getting organized. If we want to protect Freedom, of navigation, sovereignty, human rights, the international rules-based order that Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea hate. So explaining with Clarity what are our interests, and then set priorities.

In 1942, after 3 years of World War II, nothing but disaster for Great Britain. Nazi Germany, the Empire of Japan, Italy: victory, victory, victory, victory, 3 years then December 1941, Pearl Harbor. Now the United States, after disaster, is in the war. And what happened in January of 42? Churchill came to Washington met with President Roosevelt in what was called the Arcadia conference, and they made the decision, this is three years into it (and people are whining about two years in Ukraine) retired three years of disaster for the allies, and they decide Germany first. They had no reason for optimism, but yet, they made the strategic decision, "we are going to have to defeat Germany first, and then we're going to take care of Japan. This is while US Navy ships are still on fire in Pearl Harbor. So the political courage of President Roosevelt, and his ability to communicate to Americans why we had to do this, that was the first organizing step.

And then they made the decision to put together British and American to combine Chiefs of Staff. Now you have a structure that can plan and execute a war effort. I keep going back though, don't forget this was after three years of disaster. We had no reason to be optimistic. We, the US Army, was number 17 in the world, right behind Bulgaria at that time. And our Navy was on fire, or underwater, most of it. So you see, that's why I get a little impatient when people complain about Ukraine. "Oh there's no way they can win." Thank God Roosevelt did not tell Churchill, "...for the sake of Peace. You can't win. Go ahead and let the Germans have whatever," So yet no, they said, "what we believe in is so important that we're going to fight for it no matter how long it takes. We're going to do whatever it takes."

One year later, 1943, the Casablanca conference. Still January 1943, no reason to be optimistic. But these two guys agreed, "unconditional surrender." So a very clearly defined end state for the the war, not, "we we want to get into a position of strength for negotiating." Hell no, we're going to crush Nazi Germany. We're going to crush the Empire of Japan. We're going to crush Italy. And we're going to do everything necessary to achieve that very clearly defined strategic objective.

All right, and then they're able to talk to their populations and say, "Hey guys, we're at War. Everything we care about is at risk." And remember, most Americans did not want to come to Europe for another War, so we had to explain why. And we ended up with 12 million people in uniform by the end of the war. Great Britain ended up with almost 6 million people in uniform. They got the Congress to pass laws that allowed us to organize our economy so that the president could look at the president of Ford Motor Company and said, "You're not going to make any more cars for the next few years, you're going to make tanks." And then he turned to the president of Westinghouse and said, "You're not going to make refrigerators, you're going to make machine guns. And that's what they did. They organized, and got the potential of our Industries producing what was needed to achieve those strategic objectives. That's what we we need now.

How do we get organized so that all the incredible industrial capacity of the West is captured and put to work to defeat Russia first, not "we want to negotiate with Russia and hope for the sake of Peace." No, we we want to crush them, we body slam the hell out of Russia. And Ukrainians are ready to do it, they just need they need tools, we can do it. And I hear, "oh my God, Russia's 7% of the GDP is on Military. Every German I know told me, "Ben, there's no way Russia will invade Ukraine. Russia has the economy of Italy." Okay, big deal, so 7% of the GDP of Italy that that doesn't sound like so much anymore, but if you add together the economy of all of Germany, Poland, France, Baltic countries, Norway, Netherlands, etc., it dwarfs, it dwarfs, Russia. So the only thing we're missing is the heart, the political will to make the decisions necessary to do what Roosevelt and Churchill did.

Do we have the political will? Of course we have the capacity. And of course we have the military capability. Do we have the political will to get organized to defeat Russia first? And when we defeat Russia, I mean like the old fashioned way, defeat them. I'm not talking about invading Russia, I'm talking about kicking them out of Ukraine. Iran will not have any friends, they will not be able to support their proxies. North Korea will be stuck with a bunch of old ammunition and nobody to give it to. And China will say, "oh [ __ ], the West is serious about freedom of navigation, sovereignty, human rights, respect for international law. The West is serious. we're not going to attack anybody."
- General Ben Hodges

My only question is, "Why total?"  This sounds like a plan for nationalizing the world economy, not defeating an economically insignificant country spending 7% of Italy's GDP on weapons.

And then my next question is, WHEN are you going to actually START being honest?  All you've done up until now is LIE and CENSOR DISSENTING OPINIONS.  

My third, WHO are we "sacrificing" FOR?  Oligarch's?  Corporate Interests?  What's in a war of global conquest for the average American who  isn't even granted the courtesy of national citizenship (protected, NOT open borders)?

My last?  If we defeat "Russia first, who's on "second"?  Third?  Fourth?

There are NO arguments in General Hodges speech that justify fighting a war with Russia in Ukraine even IF Ukrainians do all the dying.  It's just an old unchecked box in a Cold/Hot War list of war plans to implement against the USSR if you ask me.  The beginning of never-ending war in support of global hegemony.

Victoria Nuland's "Retiring" - I wonder "why"?

Michael Crowley, "Victoria Nuland, Veteran Russia Hawk, to Leave the State Department"

A hard-charging diplomat and determined advocate of supporting Ukraine will step down from the department’s No. 3 post.

Victoria J. Nuland, the third-ranking official at the State Department and a determined advocate of tough policies toward Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia, will retire this month after more than 30 years of government service.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken announced Ms. Nuland’s departure from the post of under secretary for political affairs on Tuesday in a statement noting her “fierce passion” for freedom, democracy and human rights, and America’s promotion of those causes abroad.

Mr. Blinken singled out her work on Ukraine, which he called “indispensable to confronting Putin’s full-scale invasion” of the country.

Ms. Nuland held numerous State Department positions, including spokeswoman, and once served as deputy national security adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney. But she made her mark as a Russia specialist who long argued for marshaling strong resistance to Mr. Putin’s territorial ambitions and foreign political influence.

As the State Department’s top Russia official during the Obama administration, she argued unsuccessfully for arming Ukraine with antitank missiles, and during the Biden administration has been among the biggest proponents of sending Ukraine more and better U.S. weapons.

A skilled bureaucratic operator, she delivered her arguments with sharp wit and a bluntness that drew a mixture of admiration and fear from colleagues. “She always speaks her mind,” Mr. Blinken’s statement gently noted.

She became more widely known in 2014 after referring with an expletive to the European Union in a phone call about Ukrainian politics that was recorded and leaked, in what U.S. officials believe was the work of Russia.

During the Biden administration, Ms. Nuland became a lightning rod for skeptics of U.S. support for Ukraine. “Nobody is pushing this war more than Nuland,” the Tesla co-founder Elon Musk wrote on the social media site X last February.

She was reviled in Moscow as an avatar of a Washington establishment that was seen as conspiring to undermine Russia and even overthrow Mr. Putin. Russian officials and media outlets constantly recall the way Ms. Nuland, then the U.S. assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs, distributed food to protesters in Kyiv’s central square in early 2014 who eventually toppled Ukraine’s Kremlin-backed leader.

“A coup against the government happened in Ukraine in 2014 after under secretary of state Victoria Nuland handed out cookies to terrorists,” the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said last year. (Ms. Nuland has said she passed out sandwiches, not cookies.)

Ms. Nuland’s departure was treated as major news by the Kremlin-backed, English-language news site RT, which featured a red banner across its home page and the headline “NULAND QUITS.”

RT quoted Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, as attributing Ms. Nuland’s departure to “the failure of the anti-Russian course of the Biden administration.” She charged that “Russophobia, proposed by Victoria Nuland as the main foreign policy concept of the United States, is dragging the Democrats to the bottom like a stone.”

Ms. Nuland spent much of the past year doubling as the acting deputy secretary of state following the retirement of Wendy Sherman, who had held the job for the first two and a half years of the Biden administration.

She had been considered a natural candidate to replace Ms. Sherman on a full-time basis. But Mr. Blinken tapped Kurt Campbell, previously the top National Security Council official for Asia, for the post. Mr. Campbell was confirmed by the Senate on Feb. 6.

Mr. Blinken said the department’s under secretary for management, 
John Bass, would assume Ms. Nuland’s duties on an acting basis until a replacement was confirmed.
Some analysts interpreted the choice of Mr. Campbell as a sign that President Biden and Mr. Blinken consider managing America’s relationship with China to be their top priority, despite the way Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has consumed much of Mr. Biden’s foreign policy.

Ms. Nuland spoke publicly last month about the future of Ukraine, the country in which she had invested many hundreds of hours of her life.

“If Putin wins in Ukraine, he will not stop there, and autocrats everywhere will feel emboldened to change the status quo by force,” she warned in remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Mr. Putin “thinks he can wait out all of us,” she said. “We need to prove him wrong.”

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

3/4/24 - The Day a Popular UniParty Myth Died

Julie Kelly, "Death of an Insurrection"
On the day Donald Trump was scheduled to stand trial in Washington for charges related to the events of January 6, the Supreme Court instead delivered a death blow to the Insurrection.
Obituary

RIP, Insurrection. A young political life with such promise cut short after suffering a series of debilitating injuries over the past three years. Not even the hubris of Liz Cheney, faux outrage of Jamie Raskin, fake tears of Michael Fanone and Don Lemon, podium-pounding screeds of Joe Biden, or nonstop life-sustaining efforts by the entirety of the national news media could save it.

Date of death: March 4, 2024.

Cause of death: All nine justices on the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to reverse the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 ballot for allegedly participating in an “insurrection” on January 6, 2021.

Insurrection will be sorely missed by Andrew Weissmann, Rachel Maddow, Mitt Romney, and so many close friends from MSNBC and the Washington Post.

Thoughts and Prayers
As I explained last week, today was supposed to be a monumental day in American history: a former president for the first time would have entered a federal courtroom as a defendant in a criminal trial. And not for committing murder or dealing drugs or using relatives to strong-arm foreign oligarchs into wiring millions of dollars to shell companies for doing no work.

No, Trump was supposed to go on trial for the Insurrection—a far more dire threat to “democracy” and the “rule of law” and whatnot, according to Jennifer Rubin. No one, after all, is above the law of Insurrection even though the former president wasn’t charged with Insurrection.

But the case brought against Trump by Special Counsel Jack Smith in August 2023 for January 6 and his alleged attempts to “overturn” the 2020 election remains on indefinite hold while the courts hash out whether a president can face criminal prosecution for his conduct in office. The Supreme Court will hold oral arguments the week of April 22 to debate the unprecedented matter; every day that ticks away without a decision after that represents another delay in the Department of Justice’s J6 trial against Trump, an event the special counsel’s office and media openly admit must happen before the November election.

Whether a U.S. president is immune from criminal prosecution, the question pending before the court, undoubtedly presents complicated legal ground for the justices to consider. But the justices found common ground for now on one consequential election question: whether the Colorado Supreme Court—in a 4-3 decision—had the authority to disqualify Trump under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which reads:
In a 9-0 opinion published Monday morning, the court overturned the Colorado ruling. “Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse,” the court wrote in a per curiam—meaning the full court agreed and the opinion was not authored by a particular justice—decision.

The scope of the opinion, however, extended beyond what happened in Colorado and essentially ruled out the ability of any other state from following suit absent legislation passed by Congress. “This case raises the question whether the States, in addition to Congress, may also enforce Section 3. We conclude that States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency.”

In other words, it’s over. The casket has closed on the Insurrection.

How Will They Go On?

Loved ones of the Insurrection understandably took the news hard. Without evidence of a corpse, the bereaved reasoned, perhaps the Insurrection somehow survived the firing squad?

Noah Bookbinder, president of the nonprofit responsible for filing Insurrection-disqualifying lawsuits in numerous jurisdictions, best demonstrated the denial stage of the grieving process. “The fact that not a single justice today issued a single sentence disputing the finding that Donald Trump engaged in insurrection is incredibly telling. Yes, they let him off on a technicality, but there is no question that he is an oath-breaking insurrectionist,” Bookbinder posted, presumably from the fetal position, on X.

Bookbinder’s coping mechanism caught on fast. “The loudest sentence in today’s opinion is the one that’s not there. The Court had a chance to absolve Trump of having engaged in insurrection against the United States and declined to do that, which is a stunning statement by our nation’s highest court,” Protect Democracy founder and former Obama White House general counsel Ian Bassin posted.

Frequent MSNBC legal analyst Neal Katyal claimed the absence of an answer to a question no one asked—the court noted in its opinion that Trump’s petition for certiorari “raised a single question: ‘Did the Colorado Supreme Court err in ordering President Trump excluded from the 2024 presidential primary ballot?’—meant Trump was guilty of Insurrection…or something.
Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe, apparently rendered incoherent by grief, just threw a bunch of words on X that perhaps made sense to the voices in his head. “It’s staggering that not one of the 9 justices said a word to support Trump’s claims that trying to overturn Biden’s 2020 election wasn’t an ‘insurrection,’ that anyway he didn’t ‘engage’ in it, and that as president he was exempt from Sec 3’s disqualification from future office!”

Coping with Loss

Their life-saving spin is a desperate attempt to frustrate what is likely to be the public’s quick reading of today’s opinion: that Donald Trump did not engage in insurrection.

And with no resuscitative J6 criminal trial in the near future, that sentiment will stick no matter how hard the Katyals and Tribes of the world claim the court did not “clear” Trump’s name.

Perhaps we should be gracious during this period of mourning. It is hard, after all, for one to let go of something so critical to one’s existence. “Who am I without Insurrection?” those left behind will ask with futility as flashbacks of the QAnon shaman and Indiana mee-maws keep them awake in the wee hours.

Hopefully they can find comfort in the shared loss of others.

They will always have January 6.

FREE THE J6 POLITICAL PRISONERS!