What Trump Is Really Planning to Do

President* Donald Trump abruptly declared Thursday the U.S. will recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the disputed Golan Heights, a major shift in American policy that gives Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a political boost a month before what is expected to be a close election.

Altering national borders by conquest has been outlawed since 1948. It simply is not done, anymore.

But this has nothing to do with Israel, other than one national leader with autocratic delusions seeking to prop up another. What Trump is doing is setting the stage to meet one of Trump's master's goal: Recognition of the Russian seizure of the Crimean peninsula.

This is hugely destabilizing. Countries have been living with their existing borders for the last seventy years because they have known that trying to "adjust" their borders by military means would result in international condemnation. Trump wants to go back to the days when conquest was legal.

So then, what? India and Pakistan settle who controls Kashmir by a full-on nuclear war? The Middle Eastern nations decide to fix their Sykes-Picot borders?

This is sheer insanity. Trump is meddling with forces and consequences that he cannot comprehend. The GOP caucuses in the Senate and the House need to fucking grow some gonads and stop this lunatic.

Devin's Beatdown Continues

The Onion:

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) announced Wednesday he was considering filing a defamation lawsuit against his official Twitter account for ruining his reputation. “The figure behind @DevinNunes has disparaged my good name in what appears to be a highly coordinated effort to make me look like some kind of whiny, impetuous idiot,” said the House Intelligence Committee’s ranking member, who accused the verified account of repeatedly posting and sharing content that has portrayed him as “a crackpot with abhorrent views” since the profile was first created in 2009.

It must be tough to write for The Onion these days. Too much of our political news is almost indistinguishable from parody.

Today's local paper had a letter from a rock-ribbed Republican, who says that he refers to the last president as "O'Bummer", and who also says that he misses the dignity and stability of the Obama Administration.

Trump’s Meds

Trump needs this to help him with his bad case of McCain Derangement Syndrome.

President* Donald Trump aimed new blasts of invective at the late John McCain Wednesday, even claiming credit for the senator’s moving Washington funeral though he “never liked” him — and complaining he was never properly thanked.

Let's be clear about this: The honor of lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda is an honor that is granted by both the Senate Majority Leader and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The President has jack point shit to do with it. Further, as the article pointed out, Sen. McCain planned his funeral. Trump's contribution was to allow, after considerable public pressure, mcCain's remains to be flown from Arizona to D.C. on a C-32A. Trump only had the flag flown at half-staff for a day, raising it over the White House, until public pressure forced him to relent.

Trump's conduct during the period of the national mourning for the passing of Sen McCain was a display of pettiness, meanness, and deep butthurt. It has to gall Trump no end that even those who opposed McCain politically recognized him as a man who spent his entire adult life in service to his country, in one form or another.

Nobody will ever think that of Cadet Bone Spurs. Even those who are allied with Trump for political reasons know that he is a man without a shred of honor or dignity.

In the core of his blasted and corrupt soul, Trump has to know that Meghan McCain was spot on when she said that nobody will ever love Trump the way that they did John McCain.

And so, Trump's public display of juvenile-grade butthurt will go on.

Soon to Be an Episode of Forgotten Weapons

The Hudson H9, for Hudson Manufacturing has filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Chapter 7 is "chop up the company and sell off the pieces". If you have a H9, you now own an orphan. You had best snag as many magazines as you can find, if you intend to run your gun any. I don't know what you'll do for spares, other than watch the auction sites for parts packages.

You're probably better off putting the gun in the back of safe for a bit and then selling it as a collector's item. Hopefully, you have the box that it came in.

Per the comments: It's already on FW, which discusses the problems of bringing a new gun to market.

Field Day on Devin

Whiny-Ass Devin Nunes Discovers the Streisand Effect

So Devin Nunes sued both Twitter and some dude for a parody Twitter account, Devin Nunes' Cow.

At the time Devin the Whiner filed his case, @DevinCow had just over a thousand followers. It's well over 200K, now. It's adding a thousand or so followers every few minutes.

One of the bedrock principles of this country is that politicians are fodder for comedians and satirists. Funny how those people who say that they love freedom change their minds when they are on the receiving end of people who are exercising theirs.

I would have thought that we would have had to search far and wide to find a politician with a thinner skin than Trump. Well, Devin, we have a winner!

Quote of the Day

"No one will ever love you the way that they loved my father." Meghan McCain, responding to Trump's weekend tweetstorm

No one will ever love you the way they loved my father.... I wish I had been given more Saturday’s with him. Maybe spend yours with your family instead of on twitter obsessing over mine? https://t.co/q7ezwmHiQ4

— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) March 16, 2019

Trump can't let go of McCain.

"Even now, Trump can't let go of his contempt for McCain" https://t.co/WcbmtAFFyE. Trump hates McCain b/ c he can never be the beloved patriot that McCain was. Just as he hates Obama b/c he can never be the president that Obama was. Trump is the worse POTUS in American history.

— Chuck Stewart (@Cubbie242Chuck) March 18, 2019

What an utterly pathetic man-child we have for a president.

Dems 2020

Frankly, there are too many folks running for me to care very much. Pete Buttigieg's book was interesting. He's qualified for the debates. But he's young and, if this turns out to be a training run, he'll be positioned for 2024 and into the 2040s.

The pack will thin out over the coming months. And then, maybe I'll start to shiv a git.

Staying Home Today

I regard St. Patrick's Day as one of the three amateur-drinking holidays. No doubt that the cops will be out in force and that there will be no shortage of drunks behind the wheel as the day winds on.

Going out to eat in a crowded bar/restaurant is not my idea of fun. So I'll stay home whilst Erin goes "breaaghh".

I Assume That is Meant to Be Ironic

The 2020 race added a new player this weekend, as Senator Gillibrand debuted her “Brave Wins” slogan.

Gillibrand is not brave. She's flip-flopped around as it suits her purposes. Gillibrand is pretty much a tool of Wall Street.

I think she is as untrustworthy as all of these guys.

The Hunt for the USS WASP

This is a long article, from the Sunday NY Times Magazine, about the search for the wreck of the USS WASP.

I think it's worth the time to read.

Your Sunday Morning Turboprop Noise

A Beech Starship:

There are still a few around.

Brexit: Maybe Not This Month?

The UK's Parliament voted to ask the EU for a stay of execution more time to negotiate a Brexit deal. It'll be two years on March 29th since the UK formally notified the EU that the UK was leaving, but in that time, the Brits have been unable to agree amongst themselves the terms of an acceptable divorce package.

If the EU doesn't agree to a delay, then the Brits will, in essence, be tossed out of the EU on the 29th. All of the other countries have to agree in order to grant an extension. They may do that, but some might want some extra sugar.

The One Thing Trump Doesn't Know Anything About

“I don’t really,” Trump said in the Oval Office when asked if he saw white nationalism as a rising threat around the world, according to a pool report. “I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems, I guess. If you look what happened in New Zealand, perhaps that’s the case. I don’t know enough about it yet…But it’s certainly a terrible thing.”

Trump knows more than any experts about technology, aircraft design, campaign finance, ISIS, the legal system, government, trade, infrastructure, economics, among other things.

But about /white nationalism... he knows nothing, other than there are many Nazis who are "good people". If a Muslim had shot up a church and killed even five people in New Zealand, Trump would have been screaming about banning Muslims. Five kids were found to be innocent of a rape and Trump can't let that go, but when a white guy murders lots of people, he's got nothing to say.

Caturday

Chip is making sure that the island at the vet's exam room carries his scent.

Too Soon?

Teterboro Tower

Sort of based on a real incident.

The Cowards of the Senate

These are the Senators who chose to fall in line behind Trump, rather than stand up for the principles of separation of powers and the Constitution:

John Barrasso, Wyo.

Marsha Blackburn, Tenn.

John Boozman, Ark.

Mike Braun, Ind.

Richard Burr, N.C.

Shelley Moore Capito, W.Va.

Bill Cassidy, La.

John Cornyn, Texas

Tom Cotton, Ark.

Kevin Cramer, N.D.

Mike Crapo, Idaho

Ted Cruz, Texas

Steve Daines, Mont.

Mike Enzi, Wyo.

Joni Ernst, Iowa

Deb Fischer, Neb.

Cory Gardner, Colo.

Lindsey Graham, S.C.

Chuck Grassley, Iowa

Josh Hawley, Mo.

John Hoeven, N.D.

Cindy Hyde-Smith, Miss.

Jim Inhofe, Okla.

Johnny Isakson, Ga.

Ron Johnson, Wis.

John Neely Kennedy, La.

James Lankford, Okla.

Mitch McConnell, Ky.

Martha McSally, Ariz.

David Perdue, Ga.

Jim Risch, Idaho

Pat Roberts, Kan.

Mike Rounds, S.D.

Ben Sasse, Neb.

Rick Scott, Fla.

Tim Scott, S.C.

Richard Shelby, Ala.

Dan Sullivan, Alaska

John Thune, S.D.

Thom Tillis, N.C.

Todd Young, Ind.

I never want to hear a word from any of them about the importance of the Constitution or of separation of powers. Especially from some of the more mouthier weasels, such as Miss Lindsey and the Canadien Usurper.

They are all cowards. Every last one of them. We, as a nation, ask young people to put their lives on the line for their coiuntry. Those gutless weasels couldn't bring themselves to even risk putting their jobs on the line.

They are despicable.

Because It's Friday

PS Natchez gets under way in New Orleans.

Cheetolini Channels His Inner Fascist

President* Trump in a new interview suggested that his supporters are tougher than Democrats, and that if they actually play tough things could get "very bad."

Trump made the comments in the context of an interview with the conservative outlet Breitbart in which he argued that Democrats play a tough political game.

“You know, the left plays a tougher game, it’s very funny," Trump said in the interview with Breitbart published on Wednesday. "I actually think that the people on the right are tougher, but they don’t play it tougher."

"I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad," Trump said.

I suspect that Trump may find out that there are people across the services that take their oath of office far more seriously than does El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago.

Trump is proving the wisdom of the Founding Fathers in writing the Second Amendment into the Constitution as a counterweight to tyranny. For we now have a president who has intimated that he would not recognize losing the 2020 election.

Keep your powder dry, people. Shit could get very real in about 20 months.

You Know What Day It Is

Pi Day:

In Indiana, there was once a chance that it would have been on March 2nd.

Knee-Jerk Reaction From the Biggest Jerk

The U.S. is issuing an emergency order Wednesday grounding all Boeing 737 Max 8 and Max 9 aircraft “effective immediately,” in the wake of the crash of an Ethiopian Airliner that killed 157 people, President Donald Trump said.

Many nations had already barred the Boeing 737 Max 8 from its airspace, but until Trump’s announcement, the Federal Aviation Administration had said that it didn’t have any data to show the jets are unsafe. Trump cited “new information” that had come to light in the ongoing investigation into incident. He did not elaborate.

I am skeptical as all fuck.

One of the persistent gripes about many non-Western airlines fall into three categories. First is an inability, whether cultural or otherwise, to adopt "Cockpit Resource Management" in place of "The Captain is God". The latter mindset was, in part, behind the Asiana Airlines crash at SFO. The second is "G-d wills it"-- that if things are falling to shit, it's the will of the Almighty and there is nothing to be done. The third is that a number of pilots in non-Western airlines are "ab initio" pilots-- they did not know how to fly before being hired. They start from day one as future airline pilots. All of their flying and flight training is to that goal. So they become more systems managers than pilots (the deprecatory term is "Children of the Magenta Line"). They are not stick-and-rudder pilots.

I'm not saying that a lack of piloting skills is behind the crashes, or lack of maintenance. There is a significant and detailed investigation ahead. The data transmitted in flight as well as the data/voice recorders all need to be examined. But given that both -Max crashes have happened to Third World airlines, I am skeptical that it's an airframe issue.

One of the truisms of aviation has been when all else fails, default to pilot error. Without information as to cause, grounding all of the airplanes is a knee-jerk reaction. (I have a flight later this Spring. I would have happily taken the trip on a 737 Max.)

Tab Clearing

Fifty people, including Hollywood stars Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, were charged Tuesday in a scheme in which wealthy parents allegedly bribed college coaches and other insiders to get their children into some of the nation’s most elite schools.

Federal authorities called it the biggest college admissions scam ever prosecuted by the U.S. Justice Department, with the parents accused of paying an estimated $25 million in bribes.

There's a lot of fuckery going on there. Bribing test proctors, faking disabilities, getting picked up for college sports teams without being able to play them. This is the list of folks charged, so far.
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The Brits are on the path of crashing out of the EU with no agreement.

Prime Minister Theresa May's EU withdrawal deal has been rejected by MPs for a second time, throwing her Brexit strategy into further confusion.

MPs voted down her deal by 391 to 242 - a smaller defeat than when they rejected it in January.

The PM said MPs will now get a vote on whether the UK should leave without a deal on 29 March and, if that fails, on whether Brexit should be delayed.

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Countries are banning the 737-Max from flying in their airspace:

The European Union and India have banned the Boeing 737 Max from flying over their airspace to ensure passenger safety.

They join a long list of countries in suspending the plane, including the UK.

As of today, the Canadian and American authorities have done so. The FAA has been known to wait for hard evidence of a problem before ordering a grounding. Meanwhile, the World's Oldest Toddler has an opinion.