Rant

Trump’s statement was questioning DEI.

He, and many of us on the right, believe that DEI means hiring unqualified people. If the criteria for hiring includes anything that is something about the person which is immalleable, then it is unacceptable.

Years ago, we hired a woman to do technical writing. Having read some of her non-technical work, I expected this would work out. When she started submitting her work to me, I red penned it.

This hurt her feelings.

It hurt her feelings so much that she went to HR to complain about how mean I was to her.

The answer, use a green pen.

She wasn’t getting any better. My partner and I had a lunch meeting to discuss what to do with her.

She had graduated from law school but had failed the bar.

He was terrified, rightly so, that she would sue us if we fired her. We were afraid that she would use her status as a “woman” to claim that she was fired because she was a woman, not because she couldn’t do the job.

We agreed to move her to a different part of the company, where she would not do as much harm. It didn’t really help.

There was a lot more having to do with her, up to and including hiring a new HR person to fire her without fear.

She wasn’t hired because she was female, she was kept on because she was female.

At that time, we would have loved to have hired a black, female, physically disabled, capable person. Why? Because all the highly skilled positions in our company were white males. Those were the people who applied, those were the people that had the merit. Those were the people we hired.

Affirmative Action and DEI have caused significant harm to our country. Removing it from our culture is a good thing.

Chris Murphy says the quiet part out loud, and doesn’t even realize it.

He immediately went to “stopping DEI” is an attack on women and blacks. He is admitting that he believes that women and black cannot qualify when there is a merit-based hiring policy in place.

This is why only leftists believe that minorities, PoC are to stupid or lazy or broke to be able to get a voter ID.

For the past week, my feed has been filled with democrat hacks spewing their hate and lies.  This isn’t a good representation.  Why not?  Because yesterday I read the same words on a dozen tweets from high-profile democrat hacks.

For the last 4+ years, I’ve been hearing about the horrible things that illegal aliens have been doing. Rape, murder, kidnapping, child rape, taking over apartment complexes.

The “eating the pets” might be true, or it might not.

The joke of “there are no stray cats near the Chinese Restaurant” has a reason.

What made me sick was the lack of response by law enforcement. There were politicians who showed up to say, “Nothing to see here.” There were politicians who showed up to beg law enforcement to do something.

What didn’t show up were the cops.

Three days into Trump 2.0 and it is obvious that ICE knew where to go and whom to pick up. Outstanding!

Listening to neighbors expressing loud gratitude to the cops is another good sign. They would not be making a sound if they thought those illegals would be back before dark.

I’m liking Trump 2.0.

I catch the Babylon Bee now and again, and they’ve come up with some really hysterical stuff. When I saw this video, however, I just cringed.

Can I use my safeword to avoid listening to the new drivel? Ouch. The fact that the BB had to put commentary at the bottom was… terrifying.

I was raised in a strict Christian, Republican household where my parents always voted Republican, and they passed their views down to us kids. My father passed away about 15 years ago, and my mom remarried—a Democrat. While I’ve mostly leaned conservative, with some occasional moves toward the center, my mom has changed a lot since my dad died. She now lives in a suburb of Chicago and regularly listens to news outlets that lean left.

I didn’t tell her who I voted for in the 2024 election because I didn’t want to start a political debate. However, I did ask her, “Do you think Dad would have voted for Trump?” She replied, “Of course NOT!” I knew deep inside that he would have.

Yesterday, I called her to check in, and naturally, the conversation turned to politics.

“Can you believe it? Trump is having his inauguration inside!” my mom exclaimed. “What a wimp! It’s not going to be that cold out!”

I responded, “I don’t see any problem with that. I wouldn’t want to stand out in the cold for hours, either.”

She continued, “Well, can you believe it? He’s also staying inside because he’s afraid of being shot!”

I replied, “I wouldn’t want to be shot either. Honestly, that just makes it even more understandable that he’s having the inauguration inside. I guess I don’t see what the issue is, Mom.”

I then tried to put it into perspective: “Mom, if I were planning to get married outside, I’d have a backup plan in case of bad weather. The same goes for the high school down the street when they have graduation outside—they always have a backup plan. So I don’t understand why you’re so upset about Trump wanting to be warm and safe.”

After my conversation with my mom, I mentioned her comments to my husband and sister. They pointed out that having the inauguration inside would limit the number of people who could attend. My sister added, “If you lived in Seattle, Washington, and were flying in to see the inauguration, it would be really inconvenient if there weren’t enough tickets.”

I can understand that perspective. It makes sense that some people might feel frustrated by the limited access. However, I still find myself wondering why the left is making such a big deal out of something so minor. It feels like they’ll latch onto any small issue to portray Trump as the villain. Honestly, it makes me question—don’t people have better things to focus on? There are so many more important issues at hand.

Happy Inauguration Day! A big relief to those of us on the right.

The world is changing. When Judge Bork was being attacked by Joe Biden and the Democrats on the Senate confirmation committee, it was something new.

We had never seen a Supreme Court nominee being so maligned. It was the dirty tricks writ large and in color.

Justice Thomas had another slanderous hearing. He was strong enough to withstand the verbal attack, thank goodness.

It has become the expected action of the Democrats.

At the end of Obama’s presidency, he was attempting to push forth a “moderate” for the Supreme Court. An asshole named “Garland”. Ally was unhappy that Garland wasn’t given a full hearing before the Senate, much less a hearing before the committee. It didn’t feel “fair” to her.

I tried to explain that no matter how good Garland might be, he isn’t as good as anybody a Republican might nominate.

Today, Pet Hegseth was in the sights of the Democrats.

Senator after Senator went low. The difference is that Pete was expecting it. He took their slings and arrows without ranker and fired back winning salvos.

And he sits there with a smirk because little Lizzy has no idea what she is walking into.

The times they are a changing.

Senator Warren is using misleading language to make her base angry at the rich. Never mind that she has become wealth from being a Senator.

Social Security is supposed to be “forced” savings. The government decided that we could not be trusted with our own retirement funds.

Instead, they took money from us, during our earning years, put it in a big pot, where it would “earn” money over our lifetime of labor.

Of course, that turned out to be a lie. The investment the social security fund made was in US Government Bonds. That is, the government “borrowed” the money, promising to pay it back with interest.

To pay it back, they need to tax The People more. So the piggy bank is empty, but we pretend it holds massive assets.

She then picked a DDS. Why? Because a DDS makes more than $176,000/year. Better stated, he has more than $176k taxable income.

Why is that number important? That is the social security tax cap.

Social Security was set up to take care of the “little” people. The wealthy were left to find for themselves.

We all “know” that the amount we get back from Social Security is based on the amount we paid in. The more we paid, the more we get back.

That means that the person who made $40k per year over the course of their labor should get back something “near” $40k per year. A person who earned an average of $100k? They should get back around $100k per year.

The reality is that you get back less and the money you get back is worth less than when you put it in, and several other things. But that is the general idea.

But, if you are making over $176k/year, the government doesn’t think you should be getting back that amount. Instead, it is up to you to plan your retirement.

What she is saying is that she wants him to pay in much more than he will get out.

One other thing to remember, US taxes are on income. If you have money sitting in the bank, you don’t pay taxes on it. Instead, you pay taxes on the money you take out.

Elon paid over $11 Billion dollars in taxes for 2023. He’ll pay more this year. He has paid more in taxes than any other single human in the history of the world.

And this fork – tongued devil wants him to pay more, so she can spend it.

This is the type of case we want the Supreme Court to slap down.

The district judge’s analysis is based on a twisted view of Heller as affirmed by Bruen.

In Heller, the Court said that weapons that are most useful in military service, or at least that’s how the district court quoted it.

Ok, a bit more context, but how did the district court interpret this?

Heller specifically contemplated that weapons most useful in military service fall outside of Second Amendment protection.

This is good wordsmithing. That word “contemplated” doesn’t say that weapons most useful to military services are outside or inside the protections of the Second Amendment. It just means they discussed it. Factually, this is the only place they mention “useful” to the military or in military service.

In other words, the court gave far too much weight to what was not said.

But why is this even a question?

It is because the inferior courts can’t stop messing things up. Of going rogue.

The question is if the plain text of the Second Amendment is implicated. The district court even agrees that it is.

The district court slaps down the state for claiming that magazines are not arms as defined for purposes of the Second Amendment.

Having equivalently answered the question “Is the plain text of the Second Amendment implicated?”, the district court then goes on to claim that is not the first part of Heller.

Instead, the district court argues that the plaintiffs (good guys) have to prove that they are in common use for lawful purposes of self-defense AND that they are not most useful for military service.

If the Supreme Court issues an opinion in Ocean State Tactical, then this is a done deal. Magazine bans are gone. This case will evaporate.

If the Supreme Court doesn’t issue an opinion in Ocean State Tactical, then we can hope they strike down Maryland’s “assault weapon” ban in Snope.

Regardless, I still get upset when I read the twisted arguments of these rogue inferior courts.

For the most part, I’ve stopped writing or reporting on “mass shootings”. They happen. My initial takes are normally wrong. The information that we are fed is designed to tell a story. I hate being a conspiracy guy.

My biggest error, so far, has been my initial analysis of the Trump shooting.

Having said that, it is difficult not to have questions when something stinks.

Part of critical thinking is to ask questions. To verify answers. To put answers to the test.

Example: We had a breaker pop on Friday. I knew what the cause was instantly, the wife was running her space heater.

When I got to the living room, she’s sitting on the sofa. Within seconds, I determined that she had left the heater on, even after she left the room.

Wife and Ally are telling me that it couldn’t be the fault of the heater because it had been running for a while and hadn’t blown the circuit.

Yeah, that was before we had that extra bit of draw on the circuit from the wife turning on the TV and side table light and other loads.

They used critical thinking to eliminate the heater. I used more knowledge to rule the heater in.

That circuit is rated at 1650 watts. The heater, in low mode, draws 750 watts. The lights left on, the misc. stuff plugged into the walls, the bathroom light and fan easily reaches 300 watts. My computer has a 750 watt power supply in it. The switch and other “stuff” plugged into the same circuit. All of that is a significant load. Thus, popped breaker.

While rated at 1650 watts, those circuits will actually run for a bit over that limit until they pop.

When you look at a fact set, you have to evaluate all the parts to be able to reach a logical conclusion. Upon reaching that conclusion, you still need to have an open mind for more data that might change your analysis.

Security Analysis

Doing a security analysis of a location or situation has risk. I’m reminded of a sales analysis I did and provided to our sales manager for Cray.

The short of the analysis was that they were asking for millions of dollars from the client for a drive system which they could buy from other sources for under $100 thousand. I gave him this analysis so that he would have the ability to answer these types of questions before they were asked of him.

The sales manager reported me for “attempting to sabotage the sale”. I listened and reported back to my chain of command. The customer didn’t need me to tell them what their options were, they already knew.

Security analyses are like that. Telling a potential target of an observed weakness is more likely to get you in trouble and harassed than it is to get the institution to budge.

I’ve gamed out some options against institutional targets. I don’t ever talk about those analyses because I do not want something to happen to those targets and me becoming a person of interest.

Even the language I use would get me in trouble. I learned it from working for the military. Everything we analyzed was a “target”. It didn’t matter whether it was a T-90 from Russia or a Leopard II from Germany or an XM-1 from the US. They are all targets.

Most people don’t get it. So I don’t use those terms.

Questions

A veteran from the US Special Forces has decided to do “bad things.” He is going to detonate a bomb to cause damage to a Trump Hotel.

For some reason, he decides to take his passport with him on this mission.

The heat from the detonation is so intense, his weapons melt. Likely just the plastic furniture, but his passport and IDs survive.

What protected those IDs from the heat?

He rented a Tesla truck to do this in. What advantages does a Tesla truck have over an Econvan?

With extensive training on IEDs and making explosives, his device was pretty much a dud. What was the explosive used? Why didn’t he use a real explosive?

See TM 31–210 (HQ Department of the Army, 1969) pages 7 through 72 contains extensive information on primary and secondary explosives from field expedient sources.

Pages 194 through 223 cover making Fuses, detonators, and delay mechanisms.

A revised version was released in 2007.

So SF dude, who has been trained in all of this, messes up a simple bomb?

This man was likely highly trained in how to perform one man operations that were extremely successful. Why did he forget so much of his training?

Finally, why did he choose to use a Desert Eagle in 50 cal to off himself?

Another dog whistle that only leftists can hear.

This was in reply to a moron who claimed that this was just par for the course because “…he tried to have a rally on Juneteenth in Tulsa.”

The original post:

I don’t even want to go looking for what the accusation actually is. They have a clip of Trump saying something, but I don’t trust anything posted until I can examine it in context.