On the failed assassination attempt of President Donald Trump

It has been reported, I can't say how reliably, that the would-be assassin was an antifa member. It is essential that we Americans make every effort to confine our response to these events toward other antifa members to no more than shunning them ... AND NOTHING MORE!

Thankfully, per early reports from the Pennsylvania hospital that Trump received medical care from afterwards, Pres. Trump seems to have survived with relatively minor gunshot wounds. The early imagery looks like he was shot in the right side of his head at the point his right ear joins his skull. The lack of blood visible in his hair around the wound site makes it seem the bullet travelled entirely through the gristle the upper portion of his right ear consists of, instead of his brain.

Vote for who you like, but reject as violently as necessary any and every attempt to deny us our opportunity to express our political choice.

 

Barack Obama owes Donald Trump a big one

Barack Obama ordered the extra-judicial murder of a teenaged US citizen via drone bomb. Thanks to Donald Trump via the Supreme Court that changes the "murder" to simple "death", having no legal burden for anyone to further justify, since no one from any jurisdiction (whether recognized by the US government or not, so any treaty to the contrary is now null and void), has the legal authority to prosecute any such accusation.

It is now US law that no living president (current or former) may be prosecuted for any action taken "within the ambit of the official duties of the Office of President of the United States". Since every living president ordered arguably criminal actions during their term of office, all of them - Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W Bush, Bill Clinton, and even Jimmy Carter from his hospice bed, was liable potentially to criminal prosecution in any US court from any source - US domestic or foreign. Leaving my personal preferences aside, this is probably the best possible outcome for the future security of the US. Apparently, early legal interpretations of this "still wet ink" ruling are that civil laws regarding the US President is now also the standard for liability for criminal actions taken while in office. And it is effectively impossible to sue a President for actions taken while in office.

That all said, no president has ever had the authority to issue an unlawful order (as defined by the UCMJ) to the US military, who are each and severally prohibited from obeying any such order in any case, so bombing his political opposition is right out, and the same - or effectively so - applies to unlawful orders or instructions to non-military US government employees or "officers of the United States". This most recent SC ruling doesn't add any authority to the powers of the Office of the President, it "merely" extends the by-now traditional civil protections to potential criminal actions as well. The established laws governing impeachment remain in place under this ruling.

I think this ruling is not going to satisfy anyone, but it's still a necessary action by the Supreme Court to protect the government office in which "all of the executive branch authority" of the US government is assigned. Yes, all of the legal cases against Donald Trump must be overturned due to the fact that all of them include actions taken by him while he was still in office at the time he did (or didn't) do the deed.

Ask yourself, do you dislike Trump so much you would destroy the  entire country to attack him?

US Election 2024

These next dozen years or so will tell the tale, but these next 6 months is our national Road To Damascus moment.

Defeating mass shooters

It seems apparent that no one successfully fired a single round to stop/suppress the Maine shooter during his attacks. We need to do better at teaching ourselves how to defeat such attacks before they can escalate. 

70

 Never really expected to get this far.

RIP Diane Feinstein

 Now, let's see how long it takes Gavin Newsom to appoint himself as her replacement.

The Trump Indictment #2? #3?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxCDVOmGPlo

2024

 So, as announced earlier today, it looks like the 2024 US Presidential election choices will be Trump/? vs Kennedy/?. No matter who gets elected, Americans are gonna be the winners.

TRUMP/TRUMP 2024

 Given Ron DeSantis' recent self-defenestration politically, I think we need to begin taking a serious look at this potential political ticket.

Chyna Balloon

 On the China balloon thing; this event strikes me as being a "proof of concept" demonstration of lighter-than-air lifting body control technology development. Granted a classical balloon isn't at all "cutting edge" lifting body design, but the control software and hardware to tack and jibe to deliberately maneuver the balloon into and across the prevailing wind is (tacking and jibing a vessel is well understood conceptually; doing so autonomously is less so). This strikes me as being the most easily achievable means of extending the overhead observation time window over a given geographic region.

As to not shooting it down over land, while it's always possible the Chinese chose to just bleed off hydrogen from the balloon to power an on-board generator, the Chinese space program has almost certainly acquired/developed "nuclear battery" technology (which is technically neither; radioactive material creating heat as a by-product of its decay rate and converting that heat directly into electricity isn't nearly as easy to say though and is technology that is at least as old as Voyager 1) and would likely regard this as a good test platform for their latest development efforts in that technology. Having some hunter/hiker find one of those cracked open on the ground somewhere is not an eventuality to casually take a risk over with the open ocean off America's coastline being such a ready-to-hand option instead. It should be noted that the USN has extensive undersea recovery technology immediately at hand along the US eastern seaboard. As long as the device came down on the US continental shelf (and since the shoot down was filmable from land this seems virtually certain), recovering objects from less than 100 fathoms depth isn't all that technologically challenging for a well-enough heeled private citizen these days (Hello James Cameron!). Remember that Challenger went down well beyond the depths to be expected from this shoot down and that wreckage was closely examined in situ as well as partially recovered back onto land.

The more interesting question to me is, how did the Chinese receive whatever data was collected by the device? What did the (alleged!) surveillance device record, and to what did it transmit that data (in what spectrum?)? All of this can be ascertained from any wreckage that is recovered from the sea bed, if only by analysis of the components used in its manufacture.

An interesting event. Mostly not even remotely well reported on. Hopefully that part of things will be improved upon sooner than later.