Posts Tagged ‘UFO’

Getting Out The Ten Foot Pole To Talk About UFOs

Thursday, October 10th, 2024

If the Jeopardy category is “Topics Seldom Covered At BattleSwarm,” “What are UFOs?” is a pretty good answer. While I’ve occasionally done a post, for the most part those waters are too polluted by cranks, grifters and true believers (to the extent those categories are distinguishable) to give much credence to the idea that alien spacecraft regularly visit earth.

But since Michael Shellenberger just dropped a piece on a whistleblower saying the federal government has a secret UFO program, and since Shellenberger did such important work on the Twitter files, I am reluctantly getting out my ten foot pole* and covering the piece.

But first some background.

Back in the 1970s, a whole lot of otherwise rational people believed not only in the existence of UFOs, but in alien abductions, ancient astronauts, and a whole host of crackpot pseudoscience beliefs. Belief in UFOs as extraterrestrials visiting earth probably peaked then, reflected in popular media from Close Encounters of the Third Kind to Project Bluebook. There was also a steady stream of UFO true believers on TV, making fairly outrageous claims on actual news programs or “true story” TV shows, be it Barney Hill getting butt-probed in a saucer or Bob Lazar’s stories of alien technology at Area 51 and how Grays will use humans as “containers for souls.”

In terms of government UFO projects, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program was a real (though unpublicized) Defense Department program that evidently ran from 2007 to 2012.

Now back to Shellenberger:

There is no evidence that any non-human or extra-terrestrial intelligence has visited Earth, according to a May 2024 report by the office the Pentagon created in 2022 to study unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), formerly called UFOs.

The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) “assesses that the inaccurate claim that the USG is reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology and is hiding it from Congress is, in large part,” the report concluded, “the result of circular reporting from a group of individuals who believe this to be the case, despite the lack of any evidence.”

The former Director of AARO has since resigned his position and has repeatedly dismissed and ridiculed the topic, claiming that talk of the phenomenon is due mainly to a small group of individuals in the grip of a rumor-based religion.

But critics say that AARO’s 63-page history of the US government’s investigation into UAPs since the end of World War II was riddled with factual errors and poor referencing, including to Wikipedia. And the document was missing historical information that appeared in the 117-page “UAP Timeline” document created by a former or existing US government intelligence officer that Public published last year.

Christopher Mellon, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, wrote a lengthy rebuttal, concluding, “this is the most error-ridden and unsatisfactory government report I can recall reading during or after decades of government service.”

And major political figures, including Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, Senator Marco Rubio, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, have vouched for the credibility of UAP witnesses and whistleblowers.

“I’ve interviewed solid people,” said former president Donald Trump in September, “great pilots for the US Air Force, et cetera, they’ve seen things that they cannot explain.”

Trump has said repeatedly that the government has information about UAPs that it has not released. In 2020, during a podcast with his son, Donald Trump, Jr., Trump said, “I won’t talk to you about what I know about it, but it’s very interesting.”

In June of this year, Trump said that the government has information about UAPs that it has not released. “I have access,” he said, “and I speak to people about it. I’ve had actually meetings on it. And they will tell you there’s something going on.”

In 2021, former CIA Director John Brennan said, “I think some of the phenomena we may be seeing continue to be unexplained and might be some type of phenomenon that results from something that we don’t yet understand and could involve some type of activity that some might say constitutes a different form of life.”

The same year, the current Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, said UAPs could constitute non-human intelligence (NHI).

In 2023, a high-ranking former intelligence officer named David Grusch testified to Congress that the US government had retrieved spacecraft of nonhuman origin and bodies, which US government insiders told Public was accurate.

In July 2022, the Intelligence Community Inspector General concluded that Grusch’s complaint that “elements” of the IC had withheld or hidden UAP-related information from Congress “to purposely and intentionally thwart legitimate Congressional oversight of the UAP Program” was both “credible” and “urgent.”

At the time, Charles McCullough III, the first Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, who the US Senate had confirmed for his job in 2011, represented Grusch.

That does not mean that extraterrestrial beings occupy or are operating the UAPs, nor that the US government and military contractors are hiding crashed alien spacecraft or bodies, as some former astronauts, former IC officers, and former military leaders claim.

There are other explanations for UAPs. Current dominant alternative theories, including those put forward by AARO, are that UAPs are some kind of natural phenomenon we don’t yet understand, like ball lighting or plasma. They could also be part of some new US or foreign government weapons program, such as drones, aircraft, balloons, CGI hoaxes, or birds.

Elon Musk thinks UFO sightings are probably experimental U.S. miltech. Let’s hope so.

Other UAP skeptics say that some combination of government disinformation and social contagion, like the Satanic panic of the 1980s or the Salem witch trials, among UAP believers in the US military are driving the phenomenon.

Is it possible that the Pentagon and CIA are still playing disinformation games with the American people to cover up unacknowledged programs? Or that intelligence and security agencies, as well as politicians, are creating a UAP hoax to frighten the public? And is it possible that whistleblowers are fabricating parts or all of their testimony?

The US Air Force allegedly used disinformation against a UFO buff in the past to cover up a weapons program. Something similar could be happening today.

However, no available evidence supports that theory. And so, while this possibility should not be ignored, for it to be true, it would require a complicated conspiracy with unclear motivations.

As Senator Rubio noted last year, “Most of [the UAP whistleblowers] have held very high clearances and high positions within our government. So, you do ask yourself: What incentive would so many people with that kind of qualification – these are serious people – have to come forward and make something up?”

Rubio also said that individuals in “high clearances and high positions within our government” with “firsthand knowledge” of UAPs were “fearful of harm coming to them.”

Grusch and other UAP whistleblowers say the government retaliated against them and tried to stop them from going public.

Snip.

Existing and former US government officials have told members of Congress that AARO and the Pentagon have broken the law by not revealing a significant body of information about UAPs, including military intelligence databases that have evidence of their existence as physical craft.

One of these individuals is a current or former US government official acting as a UAP whistleblower. The person has written a report that says “the Executive Branch has been managing UAP/NHI issues without Congressional knowledge, oversight, or authorization for some time, quite possibly decades.”

Furthermore, these individuals have revealed the name of an active and highly secretive DOD “Unacknowledged Special Access Program,” or USAP. The source of the document told Public that the USAP is a “strategic intelligence program” that is part of the US military’s family of long-standing, highly-sensitive programs dealing with various aspects of the UAP ‘problem.’”

(Hat tip: Director Blue.)’

Supposedly the name of this secret UFO program is Immaculate Constellation.

All this adds up to something that congress should probably look into…but far short of actual proof that extraterrestrial vehicles are visiting earth. Just because a “whistleblower” says something doesn’t make it true.

Extraordinary claims still require extraordinary evidence…

*Do I actually have a 10 foot pole? Actually I have a 16′ extending pole (similar to this one, though with a different brand name), which I’ve found useful for things like knocking dead branches out of a tree, or getting a Frisbee off a neighbor’s roof. Back when Dwight worked in an office, he used to borrow it to use as a Festavus pole…

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Posted in Military, Uncategorized | 19 Comments »

LinkSwarm For September 27, 2024

Friday, September 27th, 2024

Democrats refuse to let rapists be deported, the apple doesn’t fall far from the Democratic assassin’s tree, Israel decapitates Hamas, more illegal alien voting schemes exposed, the boom falls on Eric Adams, Goines goes down, another Russian ammo dump goes boom, a commie sub sinks, Raptor 1 Cylon 0, and 50 Cent throws down some Diddy dirt for your amusement.

It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Man, Democrats sure love illegal alien rapists. “158 Democrats voted against a bill that would ensure ‘aliens who have been convicted of or who have committed sex offenses or domestic violence are inadmissible and deportable.’ The Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act (H.R.7909) bill was introduced by Republican Representative Nancy Mace.”
  • No, they really, really do. “ICE Detains Illegal Migrant Accused Of Raping Pre-Teen In Nantucket…More Than A Month After He Walked On Bail.” “After being charged with one count of rape of a child with a 10-year age difference and two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, [Bryan Daniel Aldana-Arevalo] was allowed to ‘walk free on bail’ and immigration authorities were never called, according to a report from the New York Post.”
  • “Ryan Wesley Routh Wrote of ‘Failed’ Assassination Attempt in Letter to ‘World’ Months Ago; Offered $150,000 Bounty to ‘Complete the Job.’” Plus a refresher to the would-be assassin the media already seems to be trying to memory hole: “While Trump was golfing at his International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida on September 15, a Secret Service agent spotted a rifle barrel with a scope sticking out of the fence and ‘engaged’ with the person, who was later identified as Routh, a Biden-Harris supporter and Democrat donor with an extensive criminal background.”
  • “Son of would-be Trump assassin arrested for child porn.” “Investigators say they discovered ‘hundreds’ of files with child pornography during a search of Oran Routh’s residence in Guilford County, North Carolina, on Saturday conducted ‘in connection with an investigation unrelated to child exploitation.’ The two charges he faces include receipt of child pornography and possession of child pornography.”
  • “Former Border Official Accuses Biden-Harris Administration of Covering up Border Crisis. Retired San Diego Sector Chief Agent Aaron Heitke says the administration provided two flights a week to take illegal aliens from San Diego to Texas.”
  • The Biden Magic continues. “US Manufacturing PMI Plunges To 15-Month Lows; Prices Are Soaring Again.”
  • No wonder “Consumer Confidence Plunges Most In 3 Years As Labor Market Weakens Significantly.”
  • “How bloodthirsty Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua used NYC migrant shelters to build a criminal empire: ‘Hiding in plain sight.’”

    In little more than a year, a once-obscure South American street gang has taken hold in the Big Apple, exploiting the migrant crisis to build a violent criminal enterprise from within the walls of city shelters.

    Tren de Aragua, a Venezuela-bred crew of thugs, now terrorize Gotham with gun-toting, moped-riding hoods, sell illegal guns under the very noses of private shelter security guards, and run sleazy prostitution rings in neighborhoods suddenly besieged by the marauding migrants.

    The gang, which also peddles a lethal fentanyl mix called Tussi or “pink cocaine,” has grown so fast that it has so far overwhelmed both average New Yorkers and the city’s elite police force.

    Given how many FBI arrests have been sprung on NYPD brass over the last few months, I’m not sure how well that “elite” appellation still applies.

    “Not every migrant is here to commit crimes, not every migrant is a gang member,” said NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny. “But these TDA guys hide very well in plain sight in the migrant community.

    “We aren’t looking to grab the food delivery guy, but these guys go so far as to wear Uber Eats clothing, [use] the delivery bags while they’re out there committing their crimes,” the chief told The Post. “When we do arrest them, they are very eager to talk about the crime they have committed.

    “They are unwilling to talk about TDA itself.”

    The gang, whose name means “train from Aragua” (a state in north-central Venezuela) in Spanish, now runs citywide theft and robbery crews that have terrorized neighborhoods.

    In Jackson Heights, a stretch of Roosevelt Avenue dubbed the “Market of Sweethearts” has become a testament to TDA’s muscle and influence, with vendors peddling stolen items and an open-air red light district that has migrant hookers walking the streets day and night.

    Plus a feud between Tren de Aragua and rival illegal alien gang El Carro De Lost Caragijos 666, as well as a guide to gang tattoos. (Hat tip: TPPF.)

  • “Harris Honeymoon Fizzles Out As Trump Leads In Sun Belt Battlegrounds.”

    Former President Donald Trump has gained ground and is leading Vice President Kamala Harris in key Sun Belt states, according to a New York Times/Siena poll from Monday.

    Trump gained in Arizona and is now leading Harris by five points with the two candidates polling at 50% and 45% among likely voters respectively, according to the poll. At the same time, Trump has also held onto his lead over Harris in Georgia by four points and in North Carolina by two points. (RELATED: Experts Say Major Swing State Is Once Again ‘Pivotal’ To Trump’s Chances Of Retaking White House)

    While the Republican candidate is leading, a significant portion of likely voters across all three states are independents, according to the poll. On average, 31% of likely voters in the Sun Belt consider themselves Democrats, 33% identify as Republicans and 31% say they are independents.

  • But Democrats have a plan to steal the election in Arizona.

    The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project and the guerilla journalists at Muckraker have teamed up to unearth a little scheme down in Arizona — registering illegal aliens to vote. And shocker, I wonder which political party those new “voters” might be supporting? I’ll give you one guess, and I bet you’ll get it right.

    The illegals Muckraker interviewed said they were registered to vote at grocery stores, while others reported activists visiting their apartment complex and encouraging them to register to vote. Why does this matter? In 2020, fewer than 11,000 votes tipped Arizona’s electoral votes to Biden.

    Fast forward to today, and recent polling shows former President Donald Trump holding a narrow lead over Vice President Kamala Harris in Arizona, a critical swing state. With the race shaping up to be just as tight in 2024, the integrity of voter registration efforts takes on even greater significance — as does the lack of concern from the left.

    It gets worse. The Oversight Project tried to track these individuals on the voter rolls but came up empty-handed — they were nowhere to be found.

    This development comes just days after the Arizona Supreme Court unanimously ruled that nearly 98,000 people with unverified citizenship documents are still eligible to vote in state and local elections.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • “Trump-Hating Colorado Secretary Of State Loses Another Election Integrity Battle.”

    Jena Griswold, Colorado’s rabidly leftist Secretary of State who will forever be known for her anti-democratic drive to knock former President Donald Trump off the ballot, has suffered another election law loss in federal court.

    The U.S. District Court for the Colorado District last week issued an order demanding the Democrat secretary of state release Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) reports suspected of containing dead registrants on the state’s voter rolls. The reports, according to a settlement, include individuals who may have died within the past three years.

    It’s another significant election integrity victory for the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), and another stunning loss for election transparency-stifling Griswold and ERIC.

    “PILF has knocked down ERIC’s wall of secrecy in the voter list maintenance process,” J. Christian Adams, president of the election integrity watchdog organization, said in a press release. “States cannot use third parties to hide election records that the public has a right to see.”

    Griswold ultimately signed the stipulation after the court denied her original request to dismiss the case. Judge Philip Brimmer ordered the secretary of state’s office to disclose the requested 2021 ERIC Reports by Nov. 1. Brimmer did allow minimal redactions to the ERIC Report Key. With the agreement reached, the judge dismissed PILF’s claim that Griswold violated the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993.

  • More on what’s actually going on in Springfield, OH. Including names and amounts for the NGOs involved. (Hat tip: BattleSwarm reader Malthus.)
  • The long awaited indictments of New York City Democratic Mayor Eric Adams finally comes down.

    New York City mayor Eric Adams engaged in a nearly decade-long conspiracy that included accepting bribes and illegal campaign contributions from foreign sources to benefit his political career, according to the federal indictment unsealed Thursday morning.

    Adams is accused of accepting free airline flights and staying in luxurious hotels on behalf of Turkish business and government officials who sought to influence him.

    He sought foreign money in part to benefit his 2021 mayoral campaign, according to the indictment. But some of the criminal conduct Adams is accused of dates as far back as 2015 when he was the Brooklyn borough president.

    Adams had been charged with five counts: conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal program bribery, and to receive campaign contributions by foreign nationals; wire fraud; solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national in two instances; and bribery.

    He is the first sitting New York mayor to face criminal charges.

    The 57-page indictment accuses Adams of funneling illegal foreign money through U.S.-based straw donors, including at least two New York construction companies, to reap over $10 million in public-matching funds based on false certifications that his campaign complied with finance regulations. The funds provide “eligible candidates with public funds to match small-dollar contributions from New York City residents,” the charging document says.

    Adams also received free or discounted travel benefits on Turkey’s national airline from a Turkish official, who facilitated the funneling of the straw donations to Adams. These overseas trips included flights from New York to Turkey, India, France, Sri Lanka, China and Hungary from 2015 to 2019. These trips are valued at more than $100,000.

    Other luxurious benefits included “free rooms at opulent hotels, free meals at high-end restaurants, and free luxurious entertainment while in Turkey,” the indictment states.

    In January 2022, when Adams was inaugurated as mayor, Adams agreed to accept foreign contributions intended for his 2025 campaign while meeting with a Turkish entrepreneur whom the indictment dubs the “Promoter.”

    The Turkish government sought influence over Adams, in part, to get his help to open a new consulate building in the city before the country’s president visited in 2021, prosecutors say. The 36-story skyscraper would have failed a fire inspection at the time.

    Prosecutors say Turkish officials cashed in on their influence with Adams and he pressured the fire officials to open the building, which they did because they “were convinced that they would lose their jobs if they didn’t back down.”

    The question, of course, is how the boom fell on Adams, but Bill de Blasio’s wife “mishandled” hundreds of millions in homeless funds and never received an investigation…

  • “Ukraine Destroys ANOTHER Ammo Dump! In Kammenyi, Krasnodar Krai.” Here’s my quick, handy description of the different between an “oblast” and a “krai’: I have no frigging clue.
  • “House Foreign Affairs Committee Holds Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Contempt of Congress.”

    The House Foreign Affairs Committee narrowly voted 26–25 to recommend Antony Blinken be held in contempt of Congress following the diplomat’s failure to appear for Tuesday’s hearing.

    “Secretary Blinken’s refusal to comply with the Committee’s subpoena — despite months of notice and offers of accommodations — warrants contempt,” the resolution read.

    The Republican-led committee has long sought to host the secretary of state as it investigates the botched U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan over three years ago that left 13 U.S. service members dead.

  • Russia likes to claim they have all the manpower in the world for Vlad’s big Ukraine Adventure, but they just formed a mechanized battalion from the crew of the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier.
  • China shows sub, sinks same.
  • Israel took out Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut. You would think Hezbollah honchos wouldn’t be hanging around their headquarters in the current conflict, but Israel reportedly took out five senior Hezbollah officials. Not sure if this is the strike or not, but it’s pretty shock-and-awe:

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Here’s what operations in Gaza look like today:

    The blue is Israel. The lack of counter-activity (which would be in red) suggests Israel may have already crushed Hamas in Gaza.

    Here’s a very long range look at Lebanon and northern Israel, showing that while Hezbollah is still launching a few rocket attacks at Israel, Israeli air power is bombing the absolute snot out of Hezbollah, not only with strikes in southern Lebanon, but even all the way up near the northern border in the Bekaa Valley.

    Israel is obviously able to hit targets in Lebanon with impunity.

    You feel sorry for Lebanese civilians caught in the crossfire, but pity is tempered by the fact that Hezbollah is part of the ruling March 8 coalition.

  • International law expert covers Operation Grim Beeper. “In the context of distinction, necessity, proportionality these principles of the laws of armed conflict being adhered to in an exemplary fashion.”
  • Bill to strip the tax-exempt status of terrorist supporting organizations (like the Council on American-Islamic Relations) moves forward in the house.
  • “Pentagon to Send Additional U.S. Troops to Middle East as Regional Tensions Boil Over.” “The U.S. maintains about 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria, primarily tasked with counterterrorism operations. U.S.-controlled military bases also exist in Turkey, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, with a total count of U.S. military personnel in the region numbering around 40,000, up from the 34,000 troops stationed in the Middle East before the October 7 massacre.” But wait! Kamala Harris said we had no troops in a war zone!
  • “Reporting a Rape in the UK Is a Crime.”

    A woman from Warrington, Cheshire, has revealed how her attempt to report a sexual attack led to her own arrest while the perpetrator remained free to assault others for nearly two years.

    Helen Ingham, 48, recently waived her right to anonymity in order to share her harrowing experience with law enforcement after reporting an assault by Ahmed Fahmy, 45, a hotel manager whose reign of terror against women spanned more than 15 years.

    There, as here, the left doesn’t want foreign rapists deported…

  • Democrats chances to take the senate this year appear to be dim. Good.
  • How Facebook lets the U.S. government censor you.
  • “U.S. House Passes ‘Kelly-Cruz Amendment’ to CHIPS Act, Sent to Biden’s Desk.

    The U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill on Monday aimed at streamlining permitting laws to facilitate the domestic construction of semiconductor factories.

    The bipartisan legislation passed by a vote of 257 to 125, with 49 members not voting, and now moves to the president’s desk for approval.

    The bill passed the Senate last year, and was passed in the House of Representatives this week as the “Kelly-Cruz substitute amendment.”

    Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ) submitted the amended text of their Senate bill in December 2023.

    When a bill passes as a “substitute amendment” in Congress, the original text is entirely replaced with new content. This new version of the bill, offered as an amendment, becomes the text that is voted on and passed.

    It aims to accelerate the construction of U.S. semiconductor facilities, as the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act of 2022 has made over $50 billion available to promote domestic production and innovation.

    It will also streamline federal permitting by designating the Department of Commerce as the lead agency for National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews, exempting certain projects from NEPA, providing the Secretary of Commerce with greater authority to expedite reviews in coordination with state and local governments, and limiting court challenge timelines.

    Snip.

    Cruz supported one portion of the CHIPS Act but disagreed with another.

    Cruz explained in 2023 that the CHIPS Act consisted of two key parts: the Facilitating American-Built Semiconductors (FABS) Act, offering a tax credit to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing investment, and the CHIPS Act itself, providing billions in direct subsidies to companies. While Cruz co-sponsored the FABS Act, he voted against the CHIPS Act due to his opposition to direct subsidies, favoring the more indirect incentive of the tax credit.

  • “Many companies have fired Gen Z workers just months after hiring them and several business owners said they are hesitant to bring on recent college graduates due to concerns about their work ethic, communication skills and readiness to do the job, according to a new survey. Six in 10 employers said they have already let go recent college graduates this year, while one in seven said they are inclined to refrain from hiring new graduates next year, according to a survey conducted by Intelligent.com.” Also: “Although they may have some theoretical knowledge from college, they often lack the practical, real-world experience and soft skills required to succeed in the work environment.” Also: “75% of companies reported that some or all of their recent college graduates were unsatisfactory.” There may be a bit of truth to this, but a lot of companies seem to be laying off and firing people of whatever age right now…
  • “Rep. David Cook Chosen as House Reform Group’s Challenger to Speaker Dade Phelan.” “The unanimous selection occurred after state Rep. John Smithee (R-Amarillo) dropped out of the race when neither candidate could meet the threshold needed head-to-head five hours after the meeting first convened.”
  • Texas State Rifle Association’s Voter’s Guide. I think all of two Democrats managed to earn as high as a B…
  • Remember Gerald Goines, the ex-HPD cop whose lies led to a drug raid based on false information that killed two people? Finally, five years after first being charged, he was found guilty of felony murder. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • “Dear Fifth Circuit Judge David Ezra: Which part of Judge Willett’s majority opinion in the border buoy case was unclear to you? Reverse your opinion and drop your stay you feeble-minded git.” The last part is only implied… (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Boise State University shuts down coffee shot on campus for being pro-police. Coffee shop owner sues and wins a $4 million settlement.
  • Bjorn Lomborg schools Bill Maher on environmental panic.
  • Seems like an Air Force F-22 Raptor shot down a UFO over Canada in 2023. This was during the Red Balloon Menace, but it sort of looks like a Cylon Raider from the BattleStar Galactica reboot.

    And now, with the thinnest of justifications:

  • How string theorists destroyed the careers of non-string theorists for 40 years. Plus: “Science is fine, it’s THE Science that needs to die.”
  • Has Zuckerbot been redpilled? Like Rubin and company, I’m quite skeptical.
  • Lacrosse is evidently really hard on the pecs.

  • Critical Drinker gives thumbs up on The Penguin. “Just the right balance between grounded realism and industrial gothic. It’s obviously still based on New York, but rundown, neglected, stricken by crime, corruption and decay. So basically just actual New York, then.”
  • 100 year old American sledgehammer survives 100 tons pressure in a hydraulic press with no significant changes. Modern Chinese sledgehammer starts deforming at 40 tons.
  • Via Not the Bee, here’s a pretty good Kamala Harris impression.

  • In a follow-up to yesterday’s Diddy story, 50 Cent’s timeline is fire.
  • “Democrats Warn That If Public Libraries Are Defunded Homeless People Will Have Nowhere To Watch Porn.”
  • “First Baptist Church Softball Team Defeats Chicago White Sox 7-2.”
  • I am in this picture, and I don’t like it: “After 20 Years, Man Makes Tearful, Difficult Decision To Change Wallets.”
  • I’ve never seen anyone as happy learning English as this young Japanese girl.

    • I’ve been unemployed for one year now, so feel free to hit the tip jar.





    Also, a hearty thanks to everyone who has already donated.

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    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Global Warming, Guns, Jihad, Military, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 8 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for July 31, 2020

    Friday, July 31st, 2020

    Idiot rioters and their identifying tattoos, more elected Democrats behaving badly, and a higher than usual helping of cute animals. Enjoy your Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Borepatch points out that U.S. Wuhan coronavirus deaths hit post-March lows. Also, all U.S. deaths are now far below the norms.

    This was not just a bad flu. The data are crystal clear on that.

    However, the data did not justify shutting down the economy. The data did not justify preventing you from saying goodbye to Grandma on her deathbed. The data did not justify prohibiting public gatherings at funerals. The data did not justify shutting down Sunday church. The data did not justify shutting down the schools. The data don’t justify mandatory mask wearing. The data don’t justify the hype.

  • Did Sweden’s herd immunity gambit work?
  • Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO and onetime Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain dies of Wuhan coronavirus.
  • DC Circuit court decides to have an en banc hearing to consider whether it wants to continue screwing General Flynn.
  • George Soros-backed St. Louis prosecutor Kim Gardner, who charged Mark and Patricia McCloskey with felonies for using guns to protect their homes, illegally took several trips took several trips paid for by activist groups that she failed to disclose. Fair and Just Prosecution is the name of the activist group in question.
  • Tennessee Democratic state senator Katrina Robinson was charged with swindling $600,000 in federal funds to pay for her wedding and a lavish lifestyle.
  • Why did Breonna Taylor die? Partially because of a police raid gone wrong, and partially because she was a drug-dealer’s ex-girlfriend:

    “Say Her Name” is one of the slogans that activists have connected to this Louisville shooting, but if we want to understand why police shot Breonna Taylor, there is another name that needs to be said — Jamarcus Glover.

    Glover is a 30-year-old narcotics trafficker who police say was dealing crack cocaine and marijuana out of a “trap house” on Elliott Avenue in Louisville’s west side. According to a police affidavit, detectives had Glover and his accomplice Adrian Walker under surveillance, and had seen their car — a red Dodge Charger with Mississippi plates — “make frequent trips” from the Elliott Avenue “trap house” to an apartment 10 miles away on Springfield Drive. Detective Joshua Jaynes wrote in the affidavit that Glover was using the Springfield Drive apartment as his mailing address; Jaynes said he had witnessed Glover pick up a postal package at the apartment; and, citing his “training and experience,” Jaynes stated his belief that Glover “may be keeping narcotics and/or proceeds from the sale of narcotics” at the Springfield Drive apartment. All of this was stated in an application for a search warrant of the Springfield Drive apartment where Breonna Taylor lived.

    You see, Jamarcus Glover was Breonna Taylor’s ex-boyfriend. They broke up a couple years ago, according to a lawyer for Taylor’s family who said she maintained a “passive friendship” with Glover. This “friendship” apparently included allowing Glover to receive his mail at her apartment, and, although there is no evidence that Taylor was ever involved in Glover’s drug operation, the “training and experience” of Detective Jaynes led him to believe there must be some connection. This was convincing enough for Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Mary Shaw, who approved the so-called “no-knock” warrant for Taylor’s apartment, and also approved nearly identical warrants for the four other addresses linked to Glover’s drug operation, including the Elliott Avenue “trap house.”

    Louisville police served all five warrants almost simultaneously, shortly after midnight on March 13. Glover was arrested at the Elliott Avenue address, but the raid on Taylor’s apartment went horribly wrong. Police Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, who was part of the five-man squad assigned to serve the warrant on the Springfield Drive address, said the squad was told in a preliminary briefing that this was a “soft target” because Taylor was believed to be alone in the apartment. Therefore, Sgt. Mattingly said, the decision was made for officers to knock on the door and announce themselves as police, despite the authorization for a “no-knock” entry. Sgt. Mattingly knocked for about a minute, he said, before the supervising lieutenant ordered them to “hit it,” using a battering ram to breach the door.

    Inside the apartment, however, Breonna Taylor was not alone. She had a new boyfriend visiting her, and they were watching a movie in her bedroom. The boyfriend, Kenneth Walker (no relation to Glover’s accomplice Adrian Walker) had a legally owned pistol, and when he heard somebody pounding on the front door, he grabbed his weapon. Why? Because he was “scared to death,” believing that the person pounding on the door might be Taylor’s drug-dealer ex-boyfriend. Walker and Taylor emerged from the bedroom into the hallway of the apartment and, Walker said, Taylor called out, “Who is it?”

    The next thing that happened, in Walker’s description of the incident, is the door “comes off its hinges” — the police are busting in, but he doesn’t know it’s the police. If you’re dating a drug dealer’s ex-girlfriend and somebody busts through your door at 12:30 in the morning, what do you do?

    Walker fired a shot, hitting Sgt. Mattingly in the thigh, and Sgt. Mattingly immediately returned fire, getting off six shots. Two other officers also opened fire. In total, police fired at least 22 shots, none of which hit Walker, but Taylor was struck eight times and died on the scene. Although a grand jury indicted Walker on a charge of attempted murder of a police officer, that charge was dismissed in May at the request of Commonwealth’s Attorney Tom Wine.

    Slogans are no replacement for facts.

  • “1-in-5 mail-in ballots tossed out in tight Congressional primary race.”
  • Trader Joe’s changes its mind, refuses to kowtow to cancel culture.
  • Lest people think I always follow President Trump’s policy position, here’s another one I differ on: Russia shouldn’t be let back into the G7 as long as they’re occupying parts of Ukraine.
  • U.S. withdrawing 12,000 troops from Germany.
  • Idaho becomes first state to ban men from competing in woman’s sports.
  • Oopsie! Alleged police car arsonist Timothy O’Donnell identified by his neck tattoo. (Hat tip: John Richardson.)
  • Speaking of super-genius rioters and tattoos, Edward Thomas Schinzing was arrested on federal arson charges in Portland thanks to the fact he was shirtless and had his own name tattooed across his back.
  • The New York Times sure loves them some UFOs.
    

  • How the press is willfully ignoring the Obamagate spying scandal:

    The Washington press corps seems engaged in a collective demonstration of the legal concept of willful blindness, or deliberately ignoring the facts, following the release of yet another declassified document which directly refutes prior statements about the investigation into Russia collusion. The document shows that FBI officials used a national security briefing of then candidate Donald Trump and his top aides to gather possible evidence for Crossfire Hurricane, its code name for the Russia investigation.

    It is astonishing that the media refuses to see what is one of the biggest stories in decades. The Obama administration targeted the campaign of the opposing party based on false evidence. The media covered Obama administration officials ridiculing the suggestions of spying on the Trump campaign and of improper conduct with the Russia investigation. When Attorney General William Barr told the Senate last year that he believed spying did occur, he was lambasted in the media, including by James Comey and others involved in that investigation. The mocking “wow” response of the fired FBI director received extensive coverage.

    The new document shows that, in summer 2016, FBI agent Joe Pientka briefed Trump campaign advisers Michael Flynn and Chris Christie over national security issues, standard practice ahead of the election. It had a discussion of Russian interference. But this was different. The document detailing the questions asked by Trump and his aides and their reactions was filed several days after that meeting under Crossfire Hurricane and Crossfire Razor, the FBI investigation of Flynn. The two FBI officials listed who approved the report are Kevin Clinesmith and Peter Strzok.

    Clinesmith is the former FBI lawyer responsible for the FISA surveillance conducted on members of the Trump campaign. He opposed Trump and sent an email after the election declaring “viva the resistance.” He is now under review for possible criminal charges for altering a FISA court filing. The FBI used Trump adviser Carter Page as the basis for the original FISA application, due to his contacts with Russians. After that surveillance was approved, however, federal officials discredited the collusion allegations and noted that Page was a CIA asset. Clinesmith had allegedly changed the information to state that Page was not working for the CIA.

  • Meet the source for all the most salacious claims in the debunked Steele dossier: Russian-born habitual drunk Igor Danchenko, who used to work for the Brookings Institution.
  • Why no riots in Detroit? Detroit Police Chief James Craig: “We don’t retreat.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Weird or menacing? “People Are Receiving Mysterious Unsolicited Packages Of Seeds In The Mail From China.”
  • From the “facts pulled out of our ass” department:

  • Stupid questions asked: “Why aren’t you gun owners defending antifa from the government?”

    Well, every single gun nut in America has spent their entire adult life being continually mocked, insulted, and belittled by the left. You’ve done nothing but paint us as the bad guys.

    In Hollywood, we’re always evil, stupid, violent, malicious, redneck, racist, murderers. That’s so ingrained in the liberal religion that when “ally” Harvey Weinstein was trying to get out of being a sleazy rapist, his repentance consisted of promising to make more movies about how the NRA is bad.
    In the news, everything is always our fault. If there is a mass murder, we can always count on the vultures to swoop in and blame America’s gun culture. They flog it for weeks on end, 24/7 coverage, hoping for gun control. And if the identity of the shooter doesn’t fit the narrative, it drops off the news in mere hours.

    And then at the local, state, and federal level, legally speaking, the left fucks us at every opportunity. You ban everything you can get away with. You ban things that literally make no sense. You ban shit just out of spite.

    When we fight back against gun control laws, you declare we are stupid because only the police should have guns (hey, aren’t those the guys you are protesting right now?)

    “Stupid racist rednecks! We live in a civilized society! Don’t you realize the police will protect us?” until when your democrat cities are on fire, and you call 911 and the operator tells you sorry, the police can’t come to your house right now, please try not to get murdered… How is that strict gun control working out for you?

    Then you did everything in your power to chase gun owners out of your sainted liberal strongholds. You passed laws. You banned everything we like. Forced all the shooting ranges to close. Forced most of the gun stores to close. And just generally let us know that our kind is not welcome there.

    But now you’ve started some shit, YOU want US to go into democrat cities, with democrat mayors, and democrat police chiefs enforcing democrat policies which cause strife among democrats, in order to get into gun fights on your behalf?

    How fucking gullible do you think we are? 😀 Like holy shit. Damn dude!

    Because we all know that literally 30 seconds after a gun nut blows away a government employee on your behalf, then all the national media coverage of the riots will instantly cease (sorta like the Corona Virus coverage did) and it’ll be back to the news breathlessly reporting about right wing extremist gun nuts, and all you useless fucks would go back to whining for more dumb ass gun control.

    You’ve already thrown the black community under the bus, cheering as their neighborhoods get burned and yours are safe. Seriously, white liberals are the shittiest “allies” in history, and your moral foundation has the consistency of Play-Doh. Your moral compass is a wind sock.

  • Newly promoted Chicago deputy chief Dion Boyd dead in apparent suicide.
  • Chinese immigrant student sues Fordham University for sanctioning him over a social media post showing him holding a gun on the anniversary of China’s Tiananmen Square massacre. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • “Antifa Member Lectures D-Day Veteran On How To Fight Fascism.”
  • “‘The Violent Riots Are A Myth,’ Says Rep. Nadler As Antifa Sets Fire To Congressional Hearing Room.”
  • “Portland Police Raise Millions By Letting Citizens Throw Tear Gas At Antifa For $5 A Pop.”
  • “Orcs March On Minas Tirith In Mostly Peaceful Protest.”
  • I LOLed:

  • Video game or not, this is pretty impressive:

  • Squirrel Ninja Warrior.
  • In restless dreams I walked alone…

  • “I’ll have the full massage, please.”

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Guns, Media Watch, Obama Scandals, Social Justice Warriors | No Comments »

    Blink-182, in Coordination With the Saucer People and DARPA, Are Developing A New Generations of Superweapons

    Saturday, October 19th, 2019

    I know that headline reads like a Simpsons gag (all it needs is the reverse vampires), but that’s the actual thrust of this Washington Examiner story from Tom Rogan. This story is about 99% bunk by weight, but there are a few interesting nuggets in here worth sifting around.

    The U.S. Army has signed a contract to study and exploit materials from unidentified flying objects. It intends to use what it learns in order to develop new weapons platforms.

    No, I’m not joking.

    The facts are provided in a newly agreed cooperative research and development contract between the U.S. Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command (specifically, the Ground Vehicle Systems Center) and the UFO technology exploitation group To The Stars Academy. Established by Blink-182 founder Tom DeLonge, To The Stars Academy involves former U.S. government, military, and advanced aerospace engineers in the research and capability exploitation of unidentified aerial phenomena, or UFOs.

    The U.S. Army’s stamped and signed 26-page contract is quite stunning.

    It says that To The Stars Academy has shown the Army that it “is a company with materiel and technology innovations that offer capability advancements for Army ground vehicles. These technology innovations have been acquired, designed, or produced by [To The Stars Academy], leveraging advancements in metamaterials and quantum physics to push performance gains.”

    “The government is interested,” the contract explains, “in a variety of the collaborator’s technologies, such as, but not limited to inertial mass reduction, mechanical/structural metamaterials, electromagnetic metamaterial wave guides, quantum physics, quantum communications, and beamed energy propulsion.” The contract also entails the research of metamaterial exploitation for the purposes of “active camouflage and directed photo projection.” On that last point, an Army spokesman tells me that To The Stars Academy has conveyed it has means of supporting “camouflage concealment deception and obscuration” interests.

    But what is this metamaterial?

    I can confirm that at least some of the source material was retrieved from crash remnants or materials sourced from UFOs. Analysis of these UFOs suggests they are enabled with space-time, cloaking, transmedium travel, and gravity manipulation capabilities. That’s not crazy conspiracy talk. In a key credibility submission, the contract adds that “the Office of the Secretary of Defense can share historical reports of findings and origin of materiel solutions in the possession of [To The Stars Academy].”

    Take a look at that giant leap from almost vaguely plausible to Above Top Secret level lunacy in the last quoted paragraph.

    This is not the first time Tom Rogan has published a Washington Examiner piece about UFOs. A good bit of that piece is about the “Tic-Tac” UFO sighting, which got a fair amount of coverage at the time. But then you get paragraphs of true believer blather:

    First, UFOs have repeatedly shown what seems to be intelligence in their operation and behavior-response to manned aircraft and monitoring systems in their vicinity. I am led to believe that the Russians (including in the Soviet era) have repeatedly tried and failed to shoot down UFOs, which have practiced evasive techniques.

    In addition, UFOs have shown an ability to travel at hypersonic speeds with anti-gravity characteristics. Some underwater phenomena are also capable of supercavitation speeds of hundreds of miles per hour underwater. Note that when it comes to underwater objects, the recorded size indicates they are not torpedoes or vessels of any known type.

    Third, UFOs manifest a continuing and special interest in military-nuclear technology (I believe it is notable that credible sightings began following the first use of atomic weapons). Former nuclear forces officers have testified that UFOs have, on occasion, even deactivated U.S. nuclear missiles during test operations.

    Fourth, UFOs often show evidence of plasma manipulation, possibly in relation to manifested cloaking capabilities.

    I am also extraordinarily confident these UFOs are not the creation of any current government or private interest. They are definitely not U.S. in origin, and they are far in advance of Chinese and Russian capabilities — including in the field of hypersonic capabilities (which the Russians lead in).

    This is stuff that belongs in Fate or Fortean Times rather than the once-respectable Washington Examiner. That piece mentions To The Stars Academy as well:

    You should, for example, listen to credible individuals such as Luis Elizondo — former head of the Pentagon’s former UFO research agency, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. Elizondo does not talk about aliens. But you should not listen to Elizondo’s To The Stars Academy colleague, Tom DeLonge (the musician is overexcited and says things that are unbound from analytical credibility).

    Oh good! The guy who says DOD is handing out money for UFO tech is saying the Blink-182 guitarist/company head is “unbound from analytical credibility.” Good to know!

    DeLonge has long been interested in UFOs. So have a lot of people, but they don’t form companies based on that interest.

    The nugget of interest here is that the contract cited appears to be real. Moreover, it’s not the first “crazy UFO technology” document to surface. In 2016, Google Patents turned up a patent for “Craft using an inertial mass reduction device” filed by the U.S. Navy with the inventor being one Salvatore Cezar Pais. It’s some wacky stuff:

    Artificially generated high energy electromagnetic fields, such as those generated with a high energy electromagnetic field generator (HEEMFG), interact strongly with the vacuum energy state. The vacuum energy state can be described as an aggregate/collective state, comprised of the superposition of all quantum fields’ fluctuations permeating the entire fabric of spacetime. High energy interaction with the vacuum energy state can give rise to emergent physical phenomena, such as force and matter fields’ unification. According to quantum field theory, this strong interaction between the fields is based on the mechanism of transfer of vibrational energy between the fields. The transfer of vibrational energy further induces local fluctuations in adjacent quantum fields which permeate spacetime (these fields may or may not be electromagnetic in nature). Matter, energy, and spacetime are all emergent constructs which arise out of the fundamental framework that is the vacuum energy state.

    Everything that surrounds us, ourselves included, can be described as macroscopic collections of fluctuations, vibrations, and oscillations in quantum mechanical fields. Matter is confined energy, bound within fields, frozen in a quantum of time. Therefore, under certain conditions (such as the coupling of hyper-frequency axial spin with hyper-frequency vibrations of electrically charged systems) the rules and special effects of quantum field behavior also apply to macroscopic physical entities (macroscopic quantum phenomena).

    Moreover, the coupling of hyper-frequency gyrational (axial rotation) and hyper-frequency vibrational electrodynamics is conducive to a possible physical breakthrough in the utilization of the macroscopic quantum fluctuations vacuum plasma field (quantum vacuum plasma) as an energy source (or sink), which is an induced physical phenomenon.

    The quantum vacuum plasma (QVP) is the electric glue of our plasma universe. The Casimir Effect, the Lamb Shift, and Spontaneous Emission, are specific confirmations of the existence of QVP.

    It is important to note that in region(s) where the electromagnetic fields are strongest, the more potent the interactions with the QVP, therefore, the higher the induced energy density of the QVP particles which spring into existence (the Dirac Sea of electrons and positrons). These QVP particles may augment the obtained energy levels of the HEEMFG system, in that energy flux amplification may be induced.

    I’ll save you the equations later in the document. I’m no expert, but it seems to be a mix of extremely advanced physics buzzword bingo mixed with highly speculative chain reasoning, of the “if V, then W, if W then X, if X then Y, if Y then Z, if Z then a miracle happens and Bob’s your uncle” variety. Do you think the guy at the patent office went “I’m going to consult with at least three quantum physicists to determine the plausibility of this patent” or just went “I don’t understand 1/10th of what’s going on here. It’s from the navy, and if I don’t approve it his boss is going to call my boss and then I’ll be stuck in two solid weeks of meetings, minimum! Might as well approve it. It’s not my problem.”

    There are at least three possibilities for how the To The Stars Academy contract happened. The first…

    I don’t give that possibility much credence.

    A second possibility is that all of Washington is awash in stupid money, and some of it got slopped into the alien technology bucket, either because they were at the end of a fiscal quarter and had to spend it on something (and we all know not spending every cent of allocated taxpayer money is a mortal sin in Washington), or because a true believer congresscritter went to bat for them, and they went “Eh, this will shut him up for a while.”

    The third possibility is that we’re just farking with the Chinese. Just like yesterday’s laughable Chinese helicopter, it’s designed to freak out opponents and make them possibly pour time and money researching dead ends, just in case it’s not bunk.

    My money is on door number three.

    (Hat tip: Jazz Shaw.)

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