Rant

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.

Defamation: A statement that injures a third party’s reputation. It is a type of tort.

Slander: A false statement, usually made orally, which defames another person. The damages from slander must be proved by the party suing.

Libel: A method of defamation expressed by print, writing, pictures, signs, effigies, or any communication embodied in physical form that is injurious to a person’s reputation.

In other words, it is all linked together. In general, we speak of libel as written defamation and slander as spoken defamation.

E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of raping her. Trump denied the allegation he raped her. Carroll then sued Trump for defamation.

Trump lost the defamation case. I believe that the case is on appeal.

This is the case that leftists have been using to say “Trump was found guilty of rape.”

No, he was not. Rape is a criminal offense, tried in a court of law, prosecuted by the state. E. Carroll was unable to find a single prosecutor willing to charge Trump with rape.

She brought a civil case. In a criminal case, the accused must be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In a civil case, it is a preponderance of the evidence. Very different.

Nobody on the left is willing to say that a court that finds in the way they want might be biased, while at the same time screaming that any court that finds against their wishes must be right-wing extremists/right leaning bias. In terms of this case, the suit was brought in a notoriously anti-Trump court.

The court allowed statements that did not directly relate to the charge.

In the end, the jury found that no rape occurred but felt that there was a sexual assault. See past articles regarding multiple charges to allow a jury to do the right thing and then give a lesser charge to make the plaintiff (in a civil suit) or the prosecutor a “smaller” win.

The jury awarded E. Carroll 5 million dollars.

Trump makes it all back, and then some

Yesterday, December 15th, Trump reached a settlement with ABC News agreed to pay $15 million to settle Trump’s defamation suit against ABC News for statements made by George Stephanopoulos.

George claimed that Trump had been found guilt of Rape. This is a false statement that damages Trump’s reputation, i.e., defamation.

Rather than a length and expensive civil trial, which they would have lost. ABC News agreed to pay $15 million for the building of the Trump presidential library. They will also pay $1 million dollars towards Trump’s legal fees.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/george-stephanopoulos-abc-apologize-trump-forced-pay-15-million-settle-defamation-suit

When I was a small kid, I would get in fights with the neighbor kid across the street from me. The parents were cool about it, but were unhappy with the bare knuckle part of the fighting. So, we were issued boxing gloves and went at it with all the grace of two gangly 3rd graders.

Plenty of swings, plenty of hits, but no real damage. Jimbo won all but one of those fights.

After every lose, I would think about what had happened and vowed to get better. Only to be beat in our next confrontation.

It was soul crushing. At the same time, I was dealing with a bully who would chase me home after school, every day.

After each battle, as I lay on the ground, crying, humiliated, he would taunt me.

The last time we fought, I won. I had learned enough to actually beat him. When he was about to go down, I went at him even harder.

He went down, and I took a step back, started to taunt him.

His brothers and sister immediately stepped in to cool things off. It was about sportsmanship. Being the better man. Doing the honorable thing.

As a 3rd grader, it was difficult, but I did manage it.

That was our last fight. He was no longer interested in fighting, preferring to talk about it instead.

When the Democrats lost control of the congress, Obama was famously quoted as saying, “I have a pen and a phone.” Telling the world that he was going to use executive powers to do what congress had not authorized him to do, sort of like a dictator.

From the moment that Trump was declared the victor of the 2024 election, there have been two loud groups of Democrats and leftists.

The first is calling me stupid because of how I voted, cutting their hair to spite Trump voters (huh? I don’t get it), wishing that the economy will crash, and in general exhibiting all the standard symptoms of TDS.

The other group is making speeches, telling me that we have to remember the other half of the country, that we have to work to end the divide between us, to allow the losers a place at the table.

In other words, don’t do to them what they do to us, every time.

Ally was very upset that Merrick Garland wasn’t given a chance to testify before the Senate Judicial committee, to find out if he was a good person for the Supreme Court.

I pointed out that the best that Merrick could be was worse than anybody a Republican would nominate. She is still upset that he didn’t get a full hearing.

There is no reason for the Trump administration to put wolves in with the flock. There is no reason for him to trust the olive branch that is handed to him. There is no reason to try to temper the response that is coming.

Here’s the thing, it is time for a scorched earth response. It is a time to clean out the rat’s nest that is the unelected bureaucracy of the Federal Government.

I’m looking forward to hearing about the RIFs that are going to happen. I’m looking forward to higher ups that are not fired, but offered positions in Nome, Alaska. I’ve been offered that choice, I could find a position elsewhere in the company, in the next six weeks, or I could resign.

It is not fun. It happens to many people.

I’m also looking forward to true investigations of the criminal activities against The People, against Trump, and against my country.

I don’t remember what the statute of limitations is on mishandling classified materials, but if it is long enough, Mrs Clinton should be charged. She was investigated, the acting director of the FBI determined that she wasn’t guilty because her purpose was pure.

Nobody else with a security clearance would get that pass.

Or the serial leaker.

Or the people who refused to show up for congressional subpoenas. I have a strong feeling that the Democrat party is going to have a tough few years.

I did not want Jimmy Carter to win. Neither did my parents. When he was elected, we were willing to cheer for him to succeed.

He didn’t. As much as Biden and Clinton messed up this country, no single President comes close to Jimmy. Most of the mess in the Middle East can be laid directly on him.

When Clinton was elected, I was unhappy. He did not strike me as a good person for the job. Still, I cheered for my country. I wished him success in bringing good things to our country.

It turns out that Bill is a morally bankrupt person. The rumors of people taking the “w” key from all the keyboards in the White House? My boss at the time was responsible for replacing all the vandalized keyboards.

I was extremely disappointed when Biden won the election. Because numbers are a gigantic part of my life, I looked at the numbers and knew that these were questionable numbers. Not that they were proof of cheating, but that they were indications that the event should be audited.

No court heard any of the Trump challenges on the merits.

Larry Correia wrote a great article regarding how auditors find fraud, —District of Columbia v. Heller, 467 U.S. 837, 627 (2008).

My issue was how it felt like “they” were out to punish “us” for speaking up.

Still, I hoped that we would make it through 4 years of Joe without too much damage. We are still here.

They Want Us to Fail

An article caught my attention, A Trump judge blocked overtime pay for 4 million workers in TEXAS….

Having been reading and following court cases, I was interested in what was going on.

First, Trump appointed the judge. That doesn’t mean the judge was wrong, nor does it mean that the judge acted in a biased way. But they had to hang this on Trump, so “Trump judge”.

To anyone in Texas that voted Blue and is affected. I am so sorry… To anyone in Texas that voted Red and is affected… Fuck you, you got what you voted for…

I’m on salary… but I wanted yall to have it. But folks voted for this.

Trump voters are about to find out the hard way and I will laugh the entire 4 yrs as their broke ass’s get on interviews begging for help!

The actual ruling? Judge blocks Biden administration’s rule to expand overtime pay for millions

Sounds to me like it was a judge following the law.

Conclusion

They want the economy to tank. They want everybody to be hurting more than we are now.
They want it out of spite. They are evil and like most evil people, think they are on the side of good.

Much of the noise in the MSM and social media (X) is leftist, attempting to call more than half the country “stupid”.

“How could you vote for a convicted felon?” ask many. Well, we’ve just seen that case evaporate. It should never have been brought. And as Justice Thomas said, …the Attorney General purported to appoint a private citizen as Special Counsel… A private citizen is not allowed to bring a criminal case.

Then there was the story about how a company informed their employees that they would not be getting “Holiday Bonuses” because they were going to use their assets/profits to buy foreign made goods before the tariffs start. With the “you are so stupid you voted for this.”

The latest meltdown has been about Trump slapping a 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico. How this was going to drive up the price of gas, which will drive up the cost of everything.

Tariffs are the only tax you can avoid

The People pay for every tax. The government uses many methods to hide the taxes you pay.

Most people know that they pay income tax. This is pretty simple, take the amount of many you were paid for your labor and give a portion of it to the government, under threat of deadly force. People with guns will take you to jail if you don’t pay.

When I was living in Maryland, I sent about 37% of my income to the local, state, and federal government.

I was also sending 5% sales tax to the state for everything I purchased in state.

But that is just the beginning.

The state slaps a tax on fuel. This drives up the cost of transportation, which drives up the price of goods, which is a tax I’m paying.

When people talk about how greedy the oil companies are, consider that taxes make up 14% of the cost of a gallon of gas, while the profits are $0.10 to $0.20 per gallon. Or about 5%. Who is greedy?

Speaking of greedy, why is it considered greedy to want to keep the money I’ve earned?

When the left screams “Tax the Rich!” or they want to raise the taxes on the wealthy, they really mean they intend to tax you more.

If the cost of doing business goes up by 10%, then that cost will be passed on to the consumer.

If we were to tax the very wealth, the rich, at 100%, it wouldn’t fund our government’s spending addiction for a full year.

The left refuses to acknowledge that taxing corporations is actually taxing the people.

When they talk about the massive profits a corporation sees, most of that goes out to The People who hold stocks. Like those of us with any sort of retirement fund outside social security.

It reminds me of a mailing that a democrat sent out which showed how horrible Oil Companies were. They got over a billion dollars in a refund, proving they didn’t pay enough. And the average leftist buys into it.

You’re stupid, tariffs will raise your prices!

Well… Yes, they will, in the short run. They can also be used to good effect to modify purchasing behaviors and the policies of foreign countries.

Just a few days after Trump announced he was going to put a 25% tariff in place against Mexico, the Mexican President announced that they were going to be turning the latest migrant caravan back, before it reaches the Mexican boarder.

And don’t let the Democrats pull a Jimmy Carter. This is not happening because of Biden, it is happening because of the incoming administration.

If you maintain a static model, then our prices will go up. But the world is not static. It is dynamic.

Under a static model, a 100% tax will bring the most amount of money to the government. The truth is that a 100% tax means that people stop working, there is no reason to work if the government takes it all. People adjust the amount they earn to modify their tax liabilities.

As an example, today I can buy a piece of machinery, made in China, for $1000. The same piece of machinery, made in the USA, will cost me $1500. For a $500 difference, I might choose to buy the made in China version.

If there is a 25% tariff, then the China machine will cost $1250, or more. Now the cost difference is less, I can decide to buy the American production.

But that is still an increase in price. Yes.

What if the American machine was only $1200? If the China machine is $1250, it is a no-brainer to buy American.

There is another thing that happens, that is there is a reason to manufacture in America.

The Chinese government subsidizes a great deal of their products to capture market share.

While the leftists will scream about the evil corporation having a monopoly and driving competition out, they fail to see it from state actors. China uses these subsidies to drive competitors out of business. Sort of like the leftists complaining about Walmart forcing small, local, business to close.

If American manufacturing can have an honest chance of competing, there will be more product made in the United States. Having more product means that there will be more supply. More supply will drive prices down.

In the end, my prices might go up. On the other hand, eventually, it is good for the country.

Sunday was supposed to be the day I migrated a couple of machines. I have a new physical device which is described as a Level 2 switch with SFP+ ports.

The idea is to replace my small mixed routers, 2 SFP+ ports plus some RJ45 ports with either a L2 SFP+ only switch or an L3 SFP+ only routers. This allows me to move some servers around and to increase the bandwidth from nodes to the backbone.

The switch arrived with a nice little instruction manual which claims I can find a web interface at 192.168.2.1 while the website claims there is no management interface.

Plugging it into an Ethernet port with an Ethernet SFP module gives me nothing on 192.168.2.1 and nothing on 192.168.2.x/24 but for my machine. It looks like it is unmanaged.

This means, it should be a simple plug in replacement for my tiny switch, giving an upgraded data path to the backbone.

It didn’t work.

So now I have to do some more testing. I’ll figure this out, one way or another, but it is another bottleneck in my path to full conversion to fiber from copper.