Interesting Items 02/05 –
Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue –
1. Carroll
2. Musk
3. FAA
4. Cori
5. Uniform
6. FBI
7. Consent
8. 737 Max
9. Ingenuity
1. Carroll. The defamation trial of Donald Trump v E Jean Carroll ended 10 days ago with a jury awarding a whopping $83 million in damages and punitive damages to Carroll and her hired gun lawfare lawerette Kaplan. The entire mess was funded by billionaire Reid Hoffman, who provided resources to fund the chicanery. In doing this, somewhere, somehow, someone will return the favor to Hoffman. When they do, sux to be him.
- The presiding judge was a 1994 Clinton judicial appointee, Lewis A Kaplan. Kaplan kept a tight lid on the festivities, most importantly not allowing Trump to defend himself from Carroll’s claims on the grounds that Trump did not participate in the rape trial at all and was not able to reopen any of those charges to defend himself. In refusing to defend himself in that trial, Trump royally screwed himself. Sometimes, Trump being Trump has its drawbacks. While the judge and Carroll’s lawyerette were briefly in the same law firm, there was not the mentor relationship between the two alleged by a Trump lawyerette after the verdict. Judge Kaplan threatened sanctions and the Trump lawyerette folded like a cheap suit.
- Carroll was able to bring the rape complaint well after the existing statute of limitations expired because NY changed state law to allow it. Trump was the first targeted under the revised law. In the old days, this would be defined as a Bill of Attainder, legislation specifically targeting an individual, making it unconstitutional, something never mentioned by the Trump legal team that I know of. Following the verdict, Breitbart published a list of 15 facts about Carroll’s allegations that the media buried. Most of these were about the rape allegations that first came to light in her 2019 book. There was a lot of weirdness exposed by Carroll in her book that would have led directly to Trump calling her names. I don’t understand why the Trump legal team didn’t try to make that connection.
- Trump is expected to appeal the verdict. Add this award to the $370 million fine requested by the NY Attorney General in the real estate civil trial and NY aided and abetted lawfare aimed at Trump is about to tie up half a billion dollars of cash, which will make future defense difficult, not to mention a presidential campaign.
- For her part, remaining Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley was asked about the verdict and $83 million award. After reminding everyone she was indeed a woman, once again playing her insufferable woman card, she said she trusted that the jury did the right thing, completely ignoring the orchestrated lawfare by democrats leading to the award. Haley is foolishly forgetting (assuming she never knew) that Republicans who go against other Republicans are the media’s favorite Republicans, that is until they run for office against a democrat. We learned that lesson with Bob Dole, John McCain and Mitt Romney. Haley’s gonna learn it too. Good and hard.
2. Musk. Speaking of lawfare, a state judge in Delaware waved her regal hand, ruling that his compensation agreement with Tesla was null and void because it was too large. If allowed to stand, this action will cost Musk $56 billion. It is important to note that Musk negotiated the package with his Board of Directors, something the judge used as her excuse to toss the package. The package required performance goals in both vehicle production and finance. Musk met every single one of them. The Board was happy, as were the shareholders. The lawsuit appears to have been brought by the singular or few expected democrat shareholder(s), whom the judge decided had more standing than everyone else involved. Expect Musk to appeal the opinion and reincorporate Tesla somewhere else, likely Texas. It took minutes before those of us on the political right went into the very well deserved and demanded 9by the judge) messenger shooting mode, looking into the connection between her and the Bidens. At the top level, when you think of anything Delaware today, think Biden. For decades, Delaware was a good place to incorporate because both the Biden crime family and its friends in high places were smart enough not to screw around with businesses incorporated in Delaware. That changed over time, with their newfound ability to use the legal system as a weapon aimed at its political enemies, particularly those of us on the right. An opinion piece in Coastal Network May 2022 noted that e-mails from Hunter’s laptop confirmed that Delaware’s Chancery Court could be bought and paid for. The presiding judge in the Musk case sits on that court and is described to be as dirty as they come. If Musk appeals to the state supreme court, expect it to uphold the presiding judge. Musk’s next option will be to reincorporate in another state, likely Texas, though he ought to stay out of Travis County (Austin). There is the very real possibility that Delaware will not allow them to reincorporate or move, something they are starting to do with increasing regularity.
3. FAA. When you install a diversity hire as a cabinet secretary, don’t be surprised when he (she or it) is more interested in diversity hiring than whatever the job of that cabinet department is supposed to be. Latest participant is Mayor Pete, hired as the designated cabinet gay guy at Secretary of Transportation. Pete’s latest diktat for the FAA is to recruit more people with psychiatric problems to be more diverse and inclusive. The FAA isn’t the only one doing this with the current United Airlines CEO being a cross dressing aficionado. In the FAA, hiring unqualified people started (as usual) in the second O’Bama term. Today, during the third O’Bama term (Dementia Hitler), they are expanding the program, no longer requiring degrees, mixing high school graduates (GEDs) with college graduates to as to obscure the lack of qualifications of the HS people. The FAA has a pair of endemic problems. First, they always have a shortage of air traffic controllers. Second, they always mismanage their tech upgrades. Always. The second means they are singularly unable to install the automation necessary to address the chronic manpower problem. Solution? Hire the mentally ill. What can possibly go wrong? There was a burst of articles last week about what they called the FAA Recruiting Scandal. Yet as we’ve seen, this is hardly a new thing, as businesses, corporations, and governments have been discriminating against white men for over 30 years.
4. Cori. Squad member, Rep Cori Bush (D, MO) claimed last week that Merrick Garland’s Do(In)J is investigating her for hiring her husband to provide personal security, paying him out of campaign funds. This is a rather odd story, not because Do(In)J is investigating this sort of fraud. Rather, it is odd because they are supposedly investigating a democrat, which means that whatever is happening is really bad for Bush and they want to protecter he from getting tossed in a close to 50:50 House. Bush has been under fire for at least three years for hiring private security, starting in 2021 when she was one of the leaders of the defund police bandwagon. A year or two later, she marries her boyfriend, who is a security gonzo, hiring him to provide personal security for her. The man reportedly did not (and still may not) have any certification for the skills required to provide this sort of armed service. The campaign paid him $42,500 for the first 9 months of 2023. House Minority Leader Jefferies hid behind mom, apple pie and the flag, prattling on about the presumption of innocence. If this was a Republican, Jefferies would already have the expulsion order drawn up and submitted.
5. Uniform. There was a little blowup last week on locals about a Republican congress critter who wore an IDF uniform on Capitol Hill. Turns out the story took place last October, as Brian Mast (R, FL) wore his uniform in solidarity with Israel after 10/7. Mast is the only congress critter who served in both the IDF and the US military. The story was resurrected after video of Ilhan Omar (D, Somalia) claiming she was in congress to represent Somalia. Several on locals demanded Mast be booted. Yawn. You guys take care of your little problem with Omar (Somalia) and Tlaib (Palestine) before I start worrying about Mast, who seems to be actually interested in what his constituents think.`.
6. FBI. The thieving vermin of the FBI got slapped down pretty hard last week by a Ninth Circus Court of Appeals opinion that found they had violated the constitutional rights of hundreds of Americans when it seized contents from 1,400 safe deposit boxes in a 2021 raid on a Beverly Hills business. The raid on the bank was aimed at a money laundering operation the FBI claimed was operating out of the bank. With this as an excuse, the FBI simply grabbed everything by everyone who had a safe deposit box and dared the owners to force them to return their (FBI’s) ill-gotten, stolen goods. During the trial, the FBI claimed the warrant allowed them to seize and catalog the contents of the boxes, yet neither the FBI nor the US Attorney’s office told the judge who signed the warrant that the agents planned to confiscate the contents of every box containing at least $5,000 in cash or belongings. The warrant only authorized seizure of business computers, money counters and surveillance equipment. Agents took some $86 million in cash as well as a trove of jewelry, gold and silver coins, gold bars, and other valuables. Two months after the raid, the FBI began civil forfeiture proceedings against an unspecified number of the boxes, intending to lock in their theft. The opinion reversed a lower court opinion siding with the FBI, ordering the FBI to destroy inventory records of any of the box holders not charged with a crime. Mark Twain famously observed that “… there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.’ Today, the FBI is working as hard as they can to catch up with that same designation, as their pursuit of organized crime has turned them into the very definition of organized criminals.
7. Consent. Calling Dr Mengele. Calling Dr Mengele. The FDA is issuing a final rule to amend regulations to implement a provision of the 21st Century Cures Act. The rule allows an exception from the requirement to get informed consent when a clinical investigation poses no more than a “minimal risk to the human subject and includes appropriate safeguards to protect the rights, safety, and welfare of human subjects.” Yeah. Right. It worked so well during COVID and with the vax (/sarc). The final rule allows another federal board, the Institutional Review Board, to waive or alter “certain informed consent elements” under limited conditions. Of course, the FDA, a completely regulatory captured entity by Big Pharma, will waive whatever they want waived when it financially benefits Big Pharma. We watched them do so over the last four solid years. FDA wants to gut informed consent because those who are informed will no longer consent to their experiments intended to financially benefit Big Pharma. Their solution? Sucks to be you.
8. 737 Max. We might have found out why the door plug that blew out of the Alaska Air 737 Max last month. The bolts what were supposed to hold the plug in place may have never been installed. Tough to keep a plug in place on a pressurized structure if it is not bolted in place. This took place at the Boeing factory rather than under Alaska Air maintenance. Alaska Air asked Boeing to reimburse it for $170 million lost during the festivities.
9. Ingenuity. Tech demos have gone pretty well in space over the last several years. One of the best of these was Ingenuity, a helicopter delivered to Mars with the Perseverance rover three years ago. It was initially a tech demo, and ended up being wildly successful, flying 72 times. It had a hard landing a couple weeks ago, damaging the end of one of the rotor blades. With the blades now out of balance, it is no longer thought to be safe to fly, though mission controllers plan on rocking it a bit to see what the damage has done to performance. Original goals were to simply see if we could build a helo to operate in Martian conditions. We ended up with a vehicle that operated for 1,000 Martian days on a variety of terrains and 48 “airfields.” It ended up being a scout for the rover’s continuing exploration. Expect similar helos to be bundled with future landers to really extend their reach.
More later –
- AG