Bayou Renaissance Man

Michael Z. Williamson, friend, author, blogger, knife vendor and all-around good guy, has written a magnificent rant about the trials and tribulations of dealing with military administration - and administrators.  I've never served in the US military, but my memories of the South African military pretty much match his, and I spent a while giggling (unhappily) over the memories his article brought back to mind.  It's a lengthy rant, and will take some time to read in full, but if you're a veteran of military service, you'll appreciate it.

Getting Some Old Military Frustrations Down On Paper

Click over there and have fun!

Peter

From Chris Martz on Twitter/X:

This plot shows the average number of days per year with daily maximum temperatures ≥95°, ≥100° and ≥105° per USHCN station since 1895.

The trend is down.

You will not see this reported anywhere in the press. I guarantee it. The extremes don’t increase at the same rate that the background warming does. Extremes are a reflection of the bounds of natural variability. Trends don’t create extremes.

There is also no such thing as “climate-fueled heat.” That’s media-spun BS. The climate is not a fuel. Local environmental conditions at the time of occurrence are. That’s called “weather.” Stop confusing the two concepts.

There's more at the link.

Here in north Texas, we're currently well into our annual heat endurance contest.  In any given week, temperatures at or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit are likely to dominate, and it'll stay that way until sometime in September.  (We've only lived here for a decade, yet we've already had one summer where the temperature was over 100 degrees on each of over 100 consecutive days.)  According to the news media, this is proof of "global warming".  Around here, we call it "summer", because it's been that way for as long as people have lived here, and is likely to remain that way.

Peter

Friend, blogger, author and publisher Lawdog takes a vituperative look at the mainstream media's cover-up of the long-running Biden scandal.  Here's a sample.

I’m listening to the Legacy Media clutching their pearls and expressing shock — shock, I say — over the state of President Biden’s mental faculties.

Claims from the Media that the “Biden inner circle” “concealed his mental state” are falling upon deaf ears, so they’re pivotting to the excuse of “It’s a sudden decline, over the last couple of months”.

Horse. Puckey.

The Media was there in 2019, when the then-candidate for FICUS called an Iowa farmer a “damned liar” and challenged him to a push-up contest.

They were there in 2020 when he called a voter a “Lying dog-faced pony soldier” for pointing out that he had only come in at 4th place in the Iowa Democratic caucus. 

There were the requests for wheelchair-bound paraplegics to stand up; demands to talk to long-dead European country leaders, tripping over various stairs, ignoring and wandering off from meetings with leaders of allied nations, unprovoked angry outbursts at American troops, calling out to dead Congresswomen at a service where he was dedicating a building to her memory — all of which predate the “last couple of months”.

. . .

Let me ask you a question that should nail home how bad you should be hating journalists right now: How many brain surgeries did Joe Biden undergo in 1988?

The answer is two. Both of them for leaking brain aneurysms, at least one of which was a berry aneurysm at the base of his brain. Not to mention that he got himself a romping pulmonary embolism while recovering from the first time someone went spelunking through his think-pudding.

None of this should be a surprise to any reporter, much less the White House Press Pool, but I’m willing to bet it’s a surprise to some of my Gentle Readers.

There's more at the link.

Lawdog does an excellent job of laying bare the unabashed machinations, censorship and partisanship of the mainstream media.  It's gotten to the point that I literally can't think of a single mainstream media organization that's completely trustworthy to be neutral and unbiased when reporting the news.  (That includes Fox News, which is today as unbalanced on the right as The Atlantic or CNN is on the left.)

When are we going to stop referring to The News Media, and start calling them what they are - The Propagandists?

Peter

James Howard Kunstler imagines the unthinkable:

Finally, there’s the novelty solution to this fine mess: “Joe Biden” stays in the race, bumps Kamala, installs Barack Obama in the veep candidate slot, they romp, then somewhere around January 21, 2025, “JB” bows out. . . and cazart! It’s back to the Good ol’ days with President Obama again! What a play!  Genius! You see, the 22nd Amendment only says: No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice. Doesn’t say anything about getting elected veep and then being elevated to president by happenstance. If that doesn’t save our democracy, I don’t know what will.

A nightmare prospect indeed!  That'll make it Obama's fourth term, because he's effectively been in command all the way through Biden's first . . .

Peter

... unless and until you verify it through at least half a dozen reliable (well, as reliable as possible) sources.  I don't care whether Ukraine or Russia is claiming something:  they're all lying.

The latest example is the "scandal" over Ukraine leader Zelensky's wife's alleged purchase of a Bugatti sports car.  It was made up out of whole cloth by Russian propaganda sources.  You can read all about it in this BBC report, which shows how it was created and disseminated, and why it's "fake news".

I've gotten to the point where, if I know that a news report originated from one or the other side's official sources, I automatically disbelieve it.  The only people I'll listen to are those that use independent sources (particularly satellite imagery, reports from people on the ground who've established a reputation for reliability, and so on).  If they report and/or confirm something, all well and good.  If they don't . . . fuggetaboutit.

The same goes for video clips of fighting in the area.  We've seen "recycled" video footage dating back years, even decades, purporting to show atrocities.  I'm sure there are some real clips among them, but when it's so difficult to verify any of them, why waste time trusting them?  Given modern technology and editing facilities, the camera can - and does - lie like a trooper.

Trouble is, too many of our legislators believe - or pretend to believe - such biased sources, and use them to justify voting for a few dozen billion dollars more for Ukraine, or more sanctions against Russia.  They don't want to know the truth, because if they did (and their constituents did) they'd be voted out of office for being spendthrift wasters of taxpayer dollars.  US veterans need health care?  Victims of natural disasters in our country need help to recover?  None of that matters as much as funneling more of our dollars into the bottomless pit of the Ukraine war - not to mention the few billion here and there that get kicked back to our politicians as a "Thank you!" for their compliance.

One of the nicest things about President Trump's term of office was that he didn't get America involved in any more foreign adventures;  in fact, he pulled a lot of US troops out of areas they had no need to be, and brought them home.  That alone offers good grounds to vote for him next time round, IMHO.

Peter

The latest Sequential Art cartoon made me grin wryly - and snarl a little, too.  Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the comic's Web page.

I've had far too many one-sided telephone conversations like that.  When can we have a menu tree that includes, "Press hash to permanently, utterly destroy the company's automated answering system"?  I reckon that would be the most popular and most-used option out there!

Peter

I note that President Trump has just been found guilty of posing an existential threat to the progressive left of American politics.  That's all yesterday's verdict amounted to.  A more rigged, biased, unfair trial I've never seen before - and I've seen some in the Third World that would curdle your whey.  This wasn't just a kangaroo court - it was the rule of menagerie law, a bunch of monkeys screaming themselves hoarse and flinging dung in all directions.  The entire American justice system is diminished by it.  One can only hope that appellate courts - and, if necessary, the Supreme Court - will undo the damage Judge Merchan has done . . . but they'll never remove its stain from our judicial record.

Tucker Carlson put it in a nutshell.

If President Trump is incarcerated, I think there will be an attempt to "do unto him" as was done unto Jeffrey Epstein.  The left simply dare not permit him to win re-election, because they know all of their sins of the past election and all the damage they've done to America since then will be visited upon their heads, and then some.  He is too dangerous to them for them to allow him to be re-elected.

If President Trump does die behind bars, or is otherwise assassinated . . . all hell may break loose.  Brace yourselves - and pray for his safety and security.

Peter

The partisan political nature of the prosecution of President Trump on so many charges, in so many venues, is beyond any doubt whatsoever.  That's made clear by the preliminary instructions to the jury in New York.

To find Trump guilty of felony-level falsification of business documents, the jury must unanimously find that Trump falsified the documents in order to commit or conceal a separate crime. But the jurors do not all have to agree on what that separate crime was, Justice Juan Merchan ruled.

. . .

In other words: If some jurors believe that Trump falsified business documents solely to cover up a tax crime, while others believe that he falsified business documents solely to cover up an election crime, the jury can still convict Trump on the felony-level falsifying-documents charges, despite disagreeing on the predicate crimes.

There's more at the link.

This is beyond belief.  It demonstrates beyond any doubt whatsoever the complete and utter disregard for the law that we see in Judge Merchan's courtroom.  Consider:

• In order to be convicted, one must be found guilty of a specific crime.
• The jury instruction above tells jurors that they don't have to agree on what specific crime was committed.  In other words, President Trump might not be convicted of a specific crime at all (because that would require a jury verdict to that effect).
• However, despite there being no specific conviction, the jury will be allowed to find President Trump guilty of falsifying documents in order to conceal a specific crime.
• But . . . if no specific crime was committed (and, in the absence of a jury ruling to that effect, that will be the legal reality) then how can President Trump be convicted of falsifying documents to conceal a crime?  If the act is not specified, and no conviction is handed down, then in legal terms he is not guilty of any crime, and therefore there is no crime to conceal.

This is so bizarre it defies belief.  Any half-way competent lawyer can see that in a heartbeat.

The judge's conduct is well summed up by former Professor Alan Dershowitz:

“This judge has committed more reversible errors in the one day I was in the courtroom than I’ve seen in years and years of practicing law. It’s just an outrage,” Dershowitz stated.

I think that if President Trump is convicted by this kangaroo court under such pretexts, it will virtually guarantee his victory in the November 2024 elections . . . if his enemies allow him to live that long.  If he's incarcerated on such flimsy grounds, one can only assume that it's to create the conditions under which he might suffer a terminal "accident" or "assault" in prison, to finally remove any possibility of his winning re-election.  Frankly, I wouldn't put that past his political enemies.  Their desperation to derail his campaign is beyond clear.

As always, I note that I am not a fan of President Trump, and I'd prefer a more balanced candidate in November.  However, that's beside the point.  Whatever one's views of President Trump, the fact that he's being treated like this by our so-called impartial, balanced judicial system is cause for the deepest concern.

Peter

To my absolute lack of surprise, I learned that cruise lines have been carefully failing to inform their customers of additional fees, charges, imposts, etc. on top of their advertised prices.  For once, California is doing the right thing by forcing them to disclose these charges.

Starting July 1, operators including Royal Caribbean International, Carnival Cruise Line, Celebrity Cruises and Princess Cruises will include the cost of port expenses, taxes and other fees in the price that potential passengers see. The additional charges can tack on more than $100 to the fare, or even double the cheapest base price on some short itineraries.

The changes kick in when California’s “Honest Pricing Law” goes into effect, restricting companies that do business in the state from advertising a price that is lower than what a consumer will ultimately have to pay.

. . .

For now, cruise lines like Carnival and Royal Caribbean promote bargain sailings, such as a seven-night Western Caribbean cruise “starting at” an average of $437 per person. But that number does not reflect the nearly $164 more that’s required for taxes, fees and port expenses and displayed in smaller print. A four-day Mexico cruise from Long Beach, Calif., shows the cheapest cabin for $234 - but the additional charges are an additional $240.

“The current ‘drip pricing’ technique where you show a low price and then tack on a lot of the extra fees later is a great attention disrupter but very misleading,” Doug Parker, founder of the podcast and news site Cruise Radio, said in an email.

Gratuities are also extra for most mainstream cruise lines, but tips will not need to be advertised up front. Cruise lines also offer optional drink or dining packages, shore excursions, and other add-ons that would increase the cost of a trip.

Parker said the cost of a seemingly inexpensive cruise can balloon with taxes, depending on the itinerary. He said the new policy will give families “a better idea on what the vacation will actually cost.”

There's more at the link.

I've been infuriated more times than I can tell to find unexplained, unauthorized charges tacked on to a bill or invoice.  Hospitals are particularly egregious offenders.  "Your procedure will cost you $4,999.99 out of pocket - your insurance pays for the rest!"  Yeah . . . and then comes the anesthetist bill, the rehab bill, the clean sheets every day bill, and all the rest of it.  Together they can add thousands of dollars to our costs, unforeseen and unbudgeted.

I'm glad this particular cesspool of financial chicanery will be drained;  but I'm willing to bet the cruise lines will find new and innovative ways to screw yet more consumer dollars out of us.  In their eyes, we're sheep to be sheared, and they're very good at shearing.

Peter

I had to do a double-take when confronted with this report from Britain.

Ford could resort to limiting the sales of its petrol cars in the UK, as it struggles to meet the electric car sales targets laid down in the government’s Zero-Emissions Vehicle Mandate.

Introduced at the start of this year, the ZEV mandate requires manufacturers to ensure that a minimum percentage of their overall sales are battery-powered, or face fines of up to £15,000 for every ICE car sold over the limit. This year, the target is set at 22 per cent, however, while EV sales continue to grow due to fleet demand, private buyers are proving reluctant to make the transition and EV targets are looking hard to meet.

. . .

[Ford's] European boss of its ‘Model e’ electric car division, Martin Sander, told the Financial Times’ Future of the Car Summit: “We can’t push EVs into the market against demand. We’re not going to pay penalties. We are not going to sell EVs at huge losses just to buy compliance. The only alternative is to take our shipments of [engine-powered] vehicles to the UK down, and sell these vehicles somewhere else”.

Sander warned that the impact of such a move could mean inflated prices for traditional petrol and diesel cars if consumer demand for ICE engined vehicles can’t be met by potentially limited supply.

There's more at the link.

So a bureaucratic edict founded in "junk science" and hotly disputed by engineers and scientists will result in would-be motorists not being allowed to purchase the vehicles they want, but rather forced to buy alternatives that are less fit for purpose, a great deal more expensive (and polluting) to produce, and requiring extremely expensive battery replacement after a relatively short time in use.  Doesn't that demonstrate the brilliance and ingenuity of bureaucrats?  "If we can't change people's taste in cars, we'll simply force a third party (i.e. vehicle manufacturers) to deprive them of the opportunity to exercise that taste.  That'll show them!"

What's even nicer for them, said bureaucrats are unelected, not subject to public scrutiny in their work, and insulated against kickback from the electorate they're supposed to serve and protect.  This policy is like an automotive version of the famous "Yes, Minister" comedy clip.

Or, there's the old saw from the early days of the computer revolution (which I was taught as an entry-level programmer back in the 1970's):  "If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs, then the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization."  I daresay bureaucrats double the destruction factor!

Bureaucrats.  Parasites.  But then, I repeat myself . . .  Sadly, we have too many of them in America.  It's one area where Britain and the USA are proudly emulating one another in grinding their citizens' faces into the administrative mud.

Peter

A few years ago I wrote an article titled "The FBI can no longer be trusted in any way, shape or form".  Given the latest news about the shenanigans of the General Services Administration, I'm thinking that warning should be applied to the entire federal bureaucracy, not just the FBI or the Justice Department.  Second City Cop reports:

So the feebs brought along props, used them in "evidence" photographs, then leaked the photos to the media. Laughable. And now it turns out that all those boxes of "classified" documents were:

• actually in the possession of the General Services Administration;
• packed by the GSA;
• delivered to Trump by the GSA;
• who then "tipped off" the feebs about supposed "classified" info.

. . . 

Even a third-world banana republic is more competent framing people that this outfit.

There's more at the link, including a link to another article providing further details.

I hope there will one day be an in-depth investigation into any and every government employee, department, agency and entity involved in the ongoing quasi-legal persecution of President Trump, with condign punishment meted out to everyone responsible for such shenanigans.  That's unlikely to happen under a Democratic Party administration, but there's always a chance that might change - one way or another.

Peter

Stephan Pastis, as usual, says it all.  Click the image to be taken to a larger view at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.

Yet again, let me point out that with all the manipulation, lying, cheating and deception going on - from both sides of the political aisle - we should not expect a free, fair election in November.  Shenanigans will be the order of the day.  Do not trust any professional politician (i.e. one who's done nothing else except work in politics since leaving high school or college).  If they've grown up in and through that system, they're as untrustworthy as that system.  By all means pick one's flavor of politician and vote for them, but don't expect that to change or improve our society.  I reckon we could count the moral, ethical, honest, upright politicians in the House or the Senate on the fingers of one hand, two at most.

Remember the acronym TINVOWOOT - There Is No Voting Our Way Out Of This - because you're going to be hearing it a lot between now and then.

Peter

I've written extensively about the Catholic Church's clergy sex abuse scandal in these pages.  As regular readers will know, the way it was mishandled led me to withdraw from that Church's ministry.  Today's discussion will discuss the latest development in that scandal.  A word of warning:  I remain Christian, and will provide a believer's perspective on the issue.  If you're not Christian and/or not a person of faith, you might prefer to skip this article.

A report from New York illustrates the core of the Catholic Church's problem, which is with us still, and will be unless and until the hierarchy of the Church returns to its joint and several roots and remakes itself in Christ's image, instead of the world's.

On Tuesday, [the New York State] Appellate court’s First Department reversed a ruling dismissing Chubb insurance’s assertion that its policies did not cover child sexual abuse claims that church leaders enabled and covered up for decades... Chubb insured the Archdiocese of New York, which serves 2.5 million Catholics, and its affiliated parishes and schools between 1956 and 2003.

. . .

The appellate court’s decision affirms Chubb’s position that it shouldn’t have to defend the Archdiocese if the organization “had knowledge of its employees’ conduct or propensities,” the company said in a statement.

“The Archdiocese must now disclose what it knew and when it knew about child abuse perpetrated by priests and employees,” the company contended. “That disclosure is critical to determining whether the [Archdiocese of New York’s] knowledge and cover-up precludes coverage.” 

The Archdiocese called the ruling “disappointing” and “wrongly decided,” claiming, “If allowed to stand, the decision will permit insurance companies to evade the contractual obligations of the policies they issued.”

There's more at the link.

The last paragraph cited above illustrates the core of the problem.  The Archdiocese of New York is not responding to the news as a body of faith, as the Body of Christ on Earth.  It's responding as a business organization, just another corporate entity talking to the courts and other corporate entities on their terms.

This is not what the Church is called to be.  It's definitely not Biblical, it's not Godly, and it ignores the calling of Christ for His church to be His bride.

There are those who'll say that of course the Church must respond to corporate issues in a corporate way;  that to do otherwise would be nonsensical.  However, think about it.  Did Christ ever tell His apostles to establish a corporation?  Hire lawyers and managers and administrators, and actually use ordained ministers of faith in those occupations, rather than as messengers of the Gospel?  What's the priority here?

Bob Mumford, a Pentecostal evangelist, once defined secular humanism as "what you get when the world evangelizes the church".  That was a prophetic definition, IMHO, and we see its results in far too many Christian churches today.  They are run as businesses rather than houses of faith;  secular corporations rather than guardians and beacons and emissaries of Christ's truth.  Christ told us to "preach the Gospel to all nations" - not erect corporate entities that would administer the secular possessions of the Church while, effectively, relegating her Divine mission to second place (if that).

That's also what gave rise to the Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal in the first place.  Seminaries were allowed to become secular in focus, concentrating on psychology, sociology, anthropology and other approaches to human life instead of inculcating the transformational, transcendental calling of Christ to his followers in their students.  Worse, the seminaries were staffed by those who shared that perspective, including many who were morally degenerate.  Anyone not sharing it was either not appointed to the staff, or removed as quickly as possible.  Furthermore, students were selected for the seminary according to their conformity with secular perspectives and liberal/progressive "spirituality", and again, those who did not demonstrate this were quickly removed.

For a thorough discussion of those issues, see the book "Goodbye, Good Men: How Liberals Brought Corruption into the Catholic Church" by Michael S. Rose, published in 2002.

The book documents everything that I've said about seminaries, and goes into a lot more detail.  It might as well be sub-titled "How Satan Subverted Future Priests", because that was the net effect of such policies on so many students for the priesthood.  I suppose we'll never know how many potentially holy, faithful and apostolic priests we lost thanks to those policies.  I'm betting it was a bunch, and then some.  Even worse, American bishops did nothing to stop this corruption.  It was their responsibility under Canon Law:  indeed, even when the seminary/ies in question were run by religious orders, and nominally not under local episcopal control, the local bishop could have suspended the sacramental faculties of professors, reported the matter to Rome and demanded action, and taken other steps to ensure orthodoxy of teaching.  As far as I'm aware, none did.  I would not like to stand in their shoes at their Judgement . . .

(It's with considerable pleasure that I recently read complaints from some liberal and progressive sources that most priests being ordained today are orthodox in their faith and loyal to the traditional spiritual and theological teaching of the Church.  I hope they're right.  If so, I guess it's the Holy Spirit restoring the church and her clergy to what they should be.)

So, the secular approach to the world epitomized in the Church's seminaries carried over to (and may even have originated in) the Church's administration.  Almost every bishop and his deputies (the Vicars General and Chancellors of dioceses, and other positions) were focused on the Church as a business, as a corporate entity, rather than the Church as the living body of believers.  They spent their time in meetings, writing memoranda, allowing accountants and lawyers to "help them" to conform the Church's structure and administration to "good business practices" - without considering their real and primary calling.  That calling became subordinated to their jobs . . . and that's why things went so appallingly wrong with the Church and some of her clergy.

We see precisely that approach reflected in the Archdiocese of New York's statement after the New York appeal court's ruling:

“If allowed to stand, the decision will permit insurance companies to evade the contractual obligations of the policies they issued.”

Not one word about whether or not the Archdiocese knew about any of the claims over which it's being sued.  It did, and we know it did, because that's come out in innumerable reports over the more than two decades that this scandal has been in the public eye.  Chubb is absolutely correct to try to avoid the costs of those claims, as the appeals court has just ruled.  Its insurance policy/ies contained a liability clause:  in so many words, if its clients knew about a potentially harmful or dangerous situation before the incident(s) occurred, and did nothing to prevent or avoid it, their insurance cover was/is forfeited.  That's a stock-standard clause in any and every liability insurance policy I've ever read.  (I might add that I hold a Master's degree in business, and was a manager and company director before I was ordained a priest, so I know what I'm talking about.)

That's also demonstrated in the public reactions of the Catholic Church in America when the clergy sex abuse scandal broke.  They instantly went into a defensive huddle and called in lawyers, psychologists, public relations specialists, and a host of other secular disciplines to help craft a defensive strategy.  Few if any bishops publicly accepted responsibility for the catastrophe, and those that did . . . well, let's say I doubt that all of them meant it whole-heartedly.  Considering the "inside information" that many priests heard at the time, that was not the impression we gained at all.  Indeed, the national programs implemented to "resolve" the issue reflected that insincerity.  Not a single one of the measures proposed and enforced did anything to deal with the roots of the problem.  Instead, they had the effect of making priests feel that their own bishops considered them to be the source of the problem, and that they were seen as guilty until proven innocent!  I've discussed in depth my reactions to the bishops' measures in an earlier article, so I won't repeat them here.

So now we have the Archdiocese of New York protesting because its former insurer is insisting on enforcing the liability clause(s) in its contracts.  As far as I'm concerned, the Archdiocese appears to be trying to force Chubb to pay for its debts and liabilities, despite the Church having failed to keep its side of the bargain.   To me, that's not only legally wrong, but morally as well.  We know the Archdiocese knew more about these scandals than it ever admitted, until it was forced to acknowledge at least some part of that knowledge in previous court proceedings - yet even now, it's trying to avoid acknowledging that reality by simply refusing to talk about it.  Honesty?  Moral uprightness?  Acknowledging sin?  Where are those Gospel realities in the arguments of the lawyers for the Archdiocese?  Non-existent.

As far as I'm concerned, if the Archdiocese of New York is forced to declare bankruptcy and sell off its physical assets, that might even be a blessing.  Perhaps then the Archdiocese and its priests could get back to living and preaching the Gospel, in season and out of season, rather than focusing on banks and lawyers and accountants and insurance policies more than they focus on the mission God has given them.

Peter

A Canadian town has plumbed new depths in the bureaucratic curtailment of individual rights and freedoms.

A Canadian town in the Gulf of St. Lawrence has become the first municipality in the country to officially require a QR code to enter and leave.

Officials say that the requirement of a QR code to enter or leave the archipelago Îles-de-la-Madeleine will only be for tourists, while residents will be required to show their driver’s licence to enter or leave.

The decision to require a QR code and identification for the municipality’s 12,000+ residents came after the municipal government announced they would begin charging all visitors who come to Îles-de-la-Madeleine $30, something which hasn’t gone down well with the locals or their family members who visit them.

Of the many concerns, one that officials sought to address was ensuring that visitors had paid their fees before leaving, hence the introduction of a mandatory QR code to leave the islands. If you don’t pay, you can’t get the QR code and won’t be able to leave.

This was initially intended for residents, too, but following an outpour of criticism, officials backed down and now say that residents only have to show their driver’s licence.

Residents, however, aren’t happy about this either, saying it’s absolutely ludicrous to have to prove their identity whenever they want to leave their homes and go to other places within their own country.

Many have also stated that this is an attack on their Charter Rights, which officials have denied.

There's more at the link.

I can't for the life of me figure out how any city council can dictate to residents and visitors whether or not they may enter and/or leave.  Just who the hell do they think they are?  What happened to individual rights and freedoms?  Where and how do some bureaucrats get the idea that they can be petty dictators like this?  Who gave them the right to insist that the rest of us are at their beck and call?

It's quite amusing to contemplate what would happen in my northern Texas town were our Mayor and Council to try anything similar.  The result would be a short, sharp and somewhat profane discussion between them and the citizens, followed by the use of rails, tar and feathers to indicate to them that they should consider rapid relocation elsewhere.  The local cops certainly would never dream of trying to enforce such an ordinance.  They want to go home after their shifts . . . and they know just how many townsfolk would object, ballistically, to any attempt to apply such restrictions.

Perhaps a bunch of us should plan a visit to Îles-de-la-Madeleine - without bothering to get the QR code on our phones, even if we agree to pay the fee - then dare the local cops to do something about it.  That might make for pay-per-view-level entertainment on local channels.

Peter

From Sundance at The Last Refuge:

There's far too much "meat on the bone" for me to quote a lot of excerpts from it and expect them to make sense.  Nevertheless, this is critically important reading if you want to understand how the Department of Justice is abusing the legal system of the United States to fraudulently target a politician.  It makes for horrendous reading.

If you want to sum up the critical point of the article, it's this:

The raid on Mar-a-Lago was a retrieval effort where the DOJ/FBI were looking for evidence of their misconduct that Donald Trump may have taken with him after his time in office.

. . .

The special counsel was looking for documents held by Donald Trump that touched on declassification and/or pertained to John Durham and Crossfire Hurricane.   They were looking for documentary evidence against them that Trump may have held (he did and likely still does).

. . .

Mary McCord, Andrew Weissmann and Norm Eisen are using “national security” as a tool to subvert and control the judicial branch while railroading President Trump.

There's much more at the link.  I strongly suggest that it's worth reading it all.

This is why I've said before, and I'll say again here, that I don't expect a free and fair election this November.  The Democratic Party and the Deep State appear bound and determined to remove former President Trump's name from the ballot through criminal conviction, any way they have to;  and if he does run, they want to blacken his name as a "convicted criminal" to such an extent that at least some of his supporters won't vote for him.  Frankly, I agree with some observers who predict that President Trump may be assassinated by his opponents, rather than allow him to take office again.  They hate and fear him that much.

I might add that I'm not a member of President Trump's fan club.  I have serious doubts over his fitness to fill another term as President;  his age is definitely a factor, as is his brash outspokenness.  However, those factors don't prevent me from recognizing that he is, indeed, being railroaded by the misuse of our criminal justice system.  That's deadly dangerous to our republic.  If the powers that be can do that to President Trump, and get away with it, then what's to stop future powers that be doing it to anyone and everyone else they don't like?

Peter

Last weekend the New York Times published an opinion piece titled "Government Surveillance Keeps Us Safe".  It's filled with ridiculous platitudes about how new "safeguards" in the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, in particular Section 702, will protect Americans from intrusive overreach while simultaneously protecting us from evil and all that sort of thing.  Those platitudes are nonsensical, as the article itself points out even while spouting them.

Civil libertarians argued that the surveillance bill erodes Americans’ privacy rights and pointed to examples when American citizens got entangled in investigations. Importantly, the latest version of the bill adds dozens of legal safeguards around the surveillance in question — the most expansive privacy reform to the legislation in its history. The result preserves critical intelligence powers while protecting Americans’ privacy rights in our complex digital age.

. . .

It is also true that the F.B.I. has broken the rules around these 702 database checks repeatedly in recent years. Agents ran improper queries related to elected officials and political protests. The wiretaps of Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser, also involved numerous violations of FISA rules. The Page wiretaps involved traditional FISA orders, not Section 702, but the bureau’s many errors there raised understandable doubts about whether it can be trusted to comply with other FISA rules.

. . .

The bill passed by Congress contains numerous reforms that will dramatically improve compliance. It sharply limits the number and ranks of F.B.I. agents who can run 702 queries, imposes strict penalties for misconduct and expands oversight by Congress and the courts.

There's more at the link.

It's so stupid it would almost be comical, if it weren't so serious.  Yes, we admit that the FBI and other authorities have for years ignored all the safeguards and legal restrictions built into the FISA process:  but the renewal legislation adds more safeguards and legal restrictions, which we're sure the FBI will not abuse this time!  Really!  We promise!  Pinky swear!

We've seen the uncovering of the festering morass of corruption that has come to dominate our intelligence services over the years, turning them into instruments of political oppression rather than public safety.  We've covered some of that information in these pages.  If you've somehow missed it, Sundance has a long and very informative article covering the subject, which you should read carefully from start to finish.  It's all true.

I hate to have to say that, because I too served in the Department of Justice.  I was medically retired almost twenty years ago, at a time when the DOJ still emphasized justice rather than political correctness.  I still associate with others who were "old-school" DOJ, who regarded the constitution and laws of this country as paramount rather than the partisan perspectives of any political party.  However, the DOJ today appears to have almost completely lost that focus.  The persecution of President Trump, and the victimization of the January 6 protesters, are just the best-known examples of how the Department has been politicized and weaponized.  There are many more.

I've said before that "The FBI can no longer be trusted in any way, shape or form".  Tucker Carlson has pointed out that "There's a reason the public's confidence in the FBI has plummeted".  Dozens, if not scores and hundreds, of observers, commenters and experts have come to the same conclusion . . . yet the Gray Lady still has no problem playing the propaganda shill for that organization.

Peter

I was cynically amused by the outrage displayed by a shopper at Whole Foods in Boston.

A Boston-based influencer has sparked outrage over inflation after claiming she paid $7 for a single apple at a Whole Foods.

. . .

“Genuinely what economy are we all f–king living in that it costs 7 dollars to buy an apple?” she asked. “I could have sworn that some other like apple that I bought was not 7 f–king dollars. It’s crazy, like 7 dollars for a latte? OK. This apple better be tasting so f–king good.”

There's more at the link.

I agree with her:  that price for a single apple is absolutely ridiculous - but so was her behavior in buying it.  If she'd put it down and walked away, she'd have saved money and the store might have learned a lesson in consumer economics.

Something like this is behind quite a lot of inflation.  Businesses aren't pricing their goods according to what they pay for them, plus a fair and reasonable profit.  Instead, they're pricing them as high as they think they can get for the product.  From a strictly capitalist perspective, of course, they're entitled to do so, because there's nothing forcing us to buy their products in the first place.  We can always look for lower prices somewhere else.  However, that becomes a lot more difficult when the availability of product is restricted (e.g. a breakdown in the supply chain, a natural disaster, etc.).  Under those conditions, products that are critical to life, health and safety may be priced out of the reach of those who most need them.  Is that just?  Is that fair?  "Pure" capitalism says it doesn't matter - that the market determines the price.  Simple human decency (not to mention the teaching of a large number of religious faiths, including Christianity, Judaism and Islam) argues otherwise.  There's no point in debating that here.  Opinions are likely as numerous (and as diverse) as our readership.

Another aspect of that problem is corporations that enter a market offering deliberately low prices, even below cost, in order to gain dominance there.  By doing so, they drive out of business other companies that can't afford to price-match them.  As soon as their competition is gone, they increase their prices to normal levels - sometimes far above normal levels.  Since consumers no longer have anywhere else (local) to go for what they need, they have little or no choice but to pay the now-inflated prices.  I've seen that at work, too.  A few years ago, back in Tennessee, a garbage removal company tried to enter our local market by offering rock-bottom rates.  Our existing service, a small family-owned business, put out flyers to all its customers, pointing out what was happening and saying that if the new entrant succeeded, they'd have to close their doors, because they didn't have the financial resources to fight back.  When a number of us checked, we found that the new entrant had used those tactics in a number of nearby municipalities, and then drastically raised its prices once customers were "locked in" to its services due to the absence of competitors.  Most of us stayed with our existing supplier, and the new entrant, frustrated, took its efforts elsewhere.

In so many words, a lot of the inflation we experience from day to day is actually caused by manufacturers and vendors setting the highest prices they think they can obtain.  They'll cite scarcity, supply chain issues, weather and anything else you can think of - but they won't reduce their prices unless and until market factors force that upon them.  Fundamentally, it's greed at work . . . and greed is one of the Seven Deadly Sins.  Unfortunately, many businessmen appear to ignore such factors.

One major exception to the rule is Waffle House, and they deserve a round of applause.  I'm sure most of my readers have heard of the "Waffle House Index", a widely referenced measurement of how severely an area has been affected by a disaster.  I've seen Waffle House at work through several hurricanes in the South, and one thing is very noticeable;  they never gouge their customers on price.  They get their restaurants back up and running as fast as humanly possible, and they maintain their pre-disaster prices no matter how much extra it costs them to bring in supplies over disrupted and sometimes hazardous routes.  Kudos to them for offering their services to survivors and rescue workers who need them very badly.  There are other stores that do likewise, but that's often at the discretion of local store managers.  Waffle House is the only chain I know of that does so as a matter of policy.  (If any readers know of other chains that do business that way, please let us know about them in Comments.)

Peter

It seems the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF for short) is bound and determined to put every single firearms transfer through a formal registration process, whether justifiable or not.

The ATF’s background check rule redefines the word “sale” so that private sellers who receive services or barter in exchange for a gun are required to use the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

. . .

... pages 26-27 of the rule equates “pecuniary gain” with “profit,” opening the door for the ATF to redefine the word “sale” so as to require a NICS check when a private seller is “bartering” over a gun.

Beginning with the last paragraph on Page 26 and reading into the first paragraph of page 27, the reader sees clearly that the ATF is defining the terms:  “Defining these terms to include any method of payment for a firearm would clarify that persons cannot avoid the licensing requirement by, for instance, bartering or providing or receiving services in exchange for firearms with the predominant intent to earn pecuniary gain even where no money is exchanged.”

Second Amendment Foundation founder and executive vice president Alan Gottlieb commented on the ATF rule, saying, “This is a continuation of the Biden war on guns. It is another attempt to get around Congress to make new laws without congressional approval.”

There's more at the link.

Never in previous American history has such registration been necessary.  I entirely agree with Mr. Gottlieb:  the ATF is trying to effectively make a new law, which is the prerogative of Congress alone, by arbitrarily redrafting its regulations under existing law to such an extent that they actually change that law.  This is unconstitutional, to say the least:  yet, under the Biden administration, such bureaucratic shenanigans have become routine.  One hopes the Supreme Court will eventually get around to striking down this latest example of ATF overreach.

Nevertheless, the bureaucrats can't close every door.  I note, for example, that to give someone a firearm one has already owned for some time as a gift (where no money or other compensation, in cash or in kind, changes hands) is still entirely legal, and does not require a background check.  I would imagine that if Joe Bloggs gives John Smith such a gun as a gift one month, and John Smith gives Joe Bloggs such a gun at a suitably later date (so that there's no obvious link between the gifts), that would still be arguably outside the new regulations.  Furthermore, if one does not receive any "pecuniary gain" for a firearm by selling it (in other words, for less than one paid for it), I would imagine that would be a suitable defense against any charge under these regulations (assuming, of course, that one did not do so regularly, thereby "conducting a business" in the trade in firearms according to the bureaucratic definition).  In the old days, that used to be more-or-less loosely defined as selling more than five firearms per year.  Now, who knows?  The regulations have not yet been tested in actual court cases.  I imagine that can't be far away.

There's also the question of "swap meets", which have been conducted for some time.  A group of friends might get together and swap firearms with each other, so that two people might swap identical models of (say) Glock pistols, each ending up with a gun that was not registered in their name.  Doing that once would still leave a traceable chain, in that a rigorous investigator might uncover links between the two individuals, and be able to follow them;  but if a gun has been swapped several times between different people on different occasions, it becomes very hard to trace everyone who's owned it since its original owner bought it.  I suspect that will be declared illegal under the new regulation, in that the ATF will probably argue that receiving an identical gun in exchange for one's own constitutes "pecuniary gain" (even if that can't be measured in dollars and cents, because no money or other "trade goods" has changed hands).

Older regulations are likely to cause some problems, and raise legal questions.  For example, it used to be entirely legal (according to the ATF's own official instructions interpreting the law, which many of us have saved in downloads and screen shots) to buy a firearm to give as a gift to someone else, and put oneself down on the ATF's Form 4473 as the actual owner or purchaser of that firearm.  Yes, they said that in black and white, and it was in effect for years.  That advice is no longer to be found on the ATF's Web page - but it has never been formally withdrawn.  I suspect it will be an interesting moment in court (if the agency chooses to pursue the issue) when the accused points out something like this:

"I did something that was entirely legal under a previous ATF interpretation of the law, but am now charged with a crime for doing exactly the same thing under a later ATF interpretation.  The underlying law has not changed - only the official interpretation and regulation.  It makes no sense for conduct under the same, unchanged law to be legal one day, and illegal the next.  That is nothing more or less than an arbitrary bureaucratic decision.  It is not a change in the law."

I'm sure we'll see and hear a great deal more about this in future.  Meanwhile, if it's important to you to own a firearm or firearms that have not been officially linked to your name through a background check, you have only a very short time available (before the new regulations are implemented) in which to buy it/them from a private seller without going through the official background check process.

Peter

Comparing fast food prices in California and a neighboring state, Arizona, is an eye-opener.

The recent minimum wage hike in California has sparked a debate on its impact on consumer prices. Critics of the wage increase have argued that it would not lead to higher costs for consumers. However, a comparison of prices at a popular fast food chain, @Arbys, reveals a stark reality.

A classic roast beef sandwich, a staple item on the menu, is priced at $5.59 in Arizona. The same sandwich costs a hefty $9.24 in California. This significant price difference clearly demonstrates the effect of the minimum wage increase on consumer wallets.

. . .

To verify the price difference, one can simply download the @Arbys app and start an online order, then switch locations from Arizona to California. The stark contrast in prices is undeniable and raises concerns about the affordability of goods in the state.

There's more at the link.

Here's a selection of headlines from just one newspaper over the past couple of weeks about how the minimum wage hike in California is affecting fast food outlets.

Do you get the impression that California's legislators and administrators don't actually give a damn about the impact of their decisions and policies on the lives of ordinary Californians?  I sure do!

The question is, when will ordinary Californians do something about it?  I hope it's soon, for their sake . . . otherwise their state is going to have slid so far down the slippery slope to failure that there may be no climbing back up again.

Peter

It seems that visitors to Jeffery Epstein's island may not have been as anonymous as they might wish.

NEARLY 200 MOBILE devices of people who visited Jeffrey Epstein’s notorious “pedophile island” in the years prior to his death left an invisible trail of data pointing back to their own homes and offices. Maps of these visitations generated by a troubled international data broker with defense industry ties, discovered last week by WIRED, document the numerous trips of wealthy and influential individuals seemingly undeterred by Epstein’s status as a convicted sex offender.

The data amassed by Near Intelligence, a location data broker roiled by allegations of mismanagement and fraud, reveals with high precision the residences of many guests of Little Saint James, a United States Virgin Islands property where Epstein is accused of having groomed, assaulted, and trafficked countless women and girls.

Some girls, prosecutors say, were as young as 14. The former attorney general of the US Virgin Islands alleged that girls as young as 12 were trafficked to Epstein by those within his elite social circle.

The coordinates that Near Intelligence collected and left exposed online pinpoint locations to within a few centimeters of space. Visitors were tracked as they moved from the Ritz-Carlton on neighboring St. Thomas Island, for instance, to a specific dock at the American Yacht Harbor—a marina once co-owned by Epstein that hosts an “impressive array” of pleasure boats and mega-yachts. The data pinpointed their movements as they were transported to Epstein’s dock on Little St. James, revealing the exact routes taken to the island.

The tracking continued after they arrived. From inside Epstein's enigmatic waterfront temple to the pristine beaches, pools, and cabanas scattered across his 71-acres of prime archipelagic real estate, the data compiled by Near captures the movements of scores of people who sojourned at Little St. James as early as July 2016. The recorded surveillance concludes on July 6, 2019—the day of Epstein’s final arrest.

There's more at the link.

Unfortunately, the article does not identify any of the devices by its owner.  I don't know why not - I mean, it's not as if they're alleging that the owners of those devices actually did anything illegal, immoral or fattening, is it?  All they could say with any certainty is that on a given date, that device - presumably in the possession of its owner - was on Epstein's island, and took a known, traceable route to and from the island.  That's not actionable in any way . . . at least, not yet.

One suspects that the owners of those devices have already taken steps to destroy them and "fudge" the records, to suggest that a subordinate or an employee was actually using them at the time.  I'd love to have been a fly on the wall to listen to the panicked conversations when the Wired article was first published.

It's a complete and utter disgrace that not a single name from Epstein's "little black book" has been published so far.  The authorities have been in possession of the names of visitors to his island for years - in some cases, decades.  Their refusal to release them strongly suggests as much of a cover-up as claims that Epstein committed suicide in prison.  (If you believe the latter, I have this bridge to sell you in Brooklyn, NYC.  It's a real bargain!  Cash only, please, and in small used bills.)

Despite this official intransigence, I hope that the names will one day become known.  One hopes against hope that it will be soon enough to make it possible to bring any guilty parties to justice.

Peter