The Finest One-Sentence Description I've Read of the Establishment Media Response to the Mueller Report

"It was like the last scene of the Sopranos."

As a Resident of a "Sanctuary County" ...

I fully support US president Donald Trump's proposal to send abducted migrants here.

I'd rather they weren't abducted in the first place and simply left unmolested in their right to travel where they damn well please.

But if not, sure, send them our way in Alachua County, Florida. By the truck load. By the plane load.  As many as you please, as many as possible.

Immigration benefits its destinations and the people living in those destinations. It boosts their economies and lowers their crime rates.

Let cities, counties, and states where the governments and  large segments of the people perpetually bellyache about "illegal immigration" while enjoying its benefits be relieved of those benefits, and see how they like it.

I'm guessing they'll respond the same way Chicago's politicians respond to the failures of their victim disarmament ("gun control") schemes.

They won't blame themselves for denying themselves the benefits (of gun rights or of immigration).

They'll blame the cities, counties, and states that accept the benefits for the problems that come with not accepting the benefits, rather than deigning to accept the benefits themselves.

A Quick Quiz to Make a Point

Not everyone's a history buff. Not everyone's even heard of the Dreyfuss affair of 1894-1906.

But of those who have heard of the Dreyfuss affair, most can probably identify at least one of two, and perhaps both, figures involved.

Figure One: Albert Dreyfuss, the French soldier accused of spying for Germany; and

Figure Two: Emile Zola, a French writer who was prosecuted for "defamation of a public authority" over his open  letter on the matter (J'Accuse ... !)

Quiz: Name any of the Presidents of the Council of Ministers of France (the rough equivalent, at the time, of Prime Ministers in parliamentary systems or presidents in the US system) during the period.

Offhand, I was able to name a grand total of one of them, out of several. But that one came to the position at the very end of the affair, and was previously Zola's publisher and co-defendant, Georges Clemenceau.

The Point: 120 years from now, it may be that not a whole lot of people will know much about the Manning affair. But of those who do, I bet more people will be able to name Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange, the equivalents of Dreyfuss and Zola, than will be able to name any of the US presidents in office at the times of their persecutions.

Yes, I Think USC 18 § 241 / § 242 Apply

18 U.S. Code § 241. Conspiracy against rights

If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or

If two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured—


They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.

18 U.S. Code § 242. Deprivation of rights under color of law

Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed for the punishment of citizens, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.


While Julian Assange is not an inhabitant of the United States, or a person in the United States, yet, prosecutors in the US are clearly conspiring to make him an inhabitant of the United States and a person in the United States, by asking the British police to kidnap him and turn him over to the United States.

After which, they intend to injure/oppress him (§ 241), and deprive him of his rights under color of law (§ 242), for his exercise and enjoyment of rights guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

So prosecution of the criminals who are after Assange -- or pre-prosecution intervention in defense of Assange -- on violation of  § 241 and § 242 is clearly warranted. The conspiracy to kidnap Assange is probable cause to suspect the rest of the elements.

The code provisions themselves provide for capital punishment where kidnapping is involved, so I see no problem at all with the pre-prosecution intervention involving summary execution of the perpetrators if they resist arrest.

Including arrest by citizens.

Yes, I am advocating precisely what it sounds like I'm advocating.

I Just Made My First Presidential Campaign Contribution for 2020 ...

... and it was to a Democrat. I don't think I've nominated to a partisan candidate who wasn't a Libertarian since prior to 1996.

Mike Gravel is trying to get 65,000 donations to qualify for participation in the Democratic Party's presidential nomination debates.

If you're a partisan Libertarian, you may remember that the former Senator sought our party's presidential nomination in 2008.

I did not support Gravel for the nomination (I was a Kubby and Ruwart guy), but I did like him (I got to spend some time with him in multi-campaign "how do we stop Barr" strategy sessions) and his campaign staff (at least one of whom, Christopher Thrasher, has been a valuable LP activist ever since).

And let's face it, Gravel was a better candidate, by at least a full order of magnitude, than the screw-job fakeatarians we chose for both slots on the ticket that year (Bob Barr and Wayne Allyn Root).

So I threw five bucks his way specifically to help him get into those debates, where he plans to pitch a non-interventionist foreign policy.

Any donation, any amount, will help him reach that goal (I think he's about a quarter of the way there). I hope you'll shake loose a couple of bucks for him, too.

The Porn Ransom Email Thing ...

From my inbox, in an email supposedly from one of my own addresses ...

This account has been infected! Renew your pswd this time!
You might not know me me and you are probably wanting to know why you're receiving this e-mail, is it right?
I am ahacker who burstyour emailand devicesnot so long ago.
It will be a time wasting to try out to msg me or alternatively try to find me, in fact it's not possible, considering that I directed you an email from YOUR own hacked account.

Yes, because it's SO complicated to make it look like a message originating from pburin@vhsolucoes.com.br is actually from another address. Didn't even do a very good job of covering your tracks.

I have installed malware soft on the adult videos (porn) website and suppose that you have enjoyed this website to have fun (you understand what I mean).
When you have been keeping an eye on content, your internet browser started out functioning as a RDP (Remote Control) with a keylogger that granted me access to your monitor and web camera.
Consequently, my softwareaquiredall information.
You wrote passcodes on the web services you visited, and I caught them.
Needless to say, it's possible to modify them, or perhaps already modified them.
But it really doesn't matter, my spyware renews it regularly.
What I have done?
I generated a reserve copy of your system. Of all files and contact lists.
I got a dual-screen movie. The first screen shows the film that you were observing (you've an interesting preferences, wow...), the second screen reveals the recording from your web camera.
What do you have to do?
Clearly, in my view, 1000 USD is basically a inexpensive amount of money for this little riddle. You will make your deposit by bitcoins (if you do not know this, try to find “how to purchase bitcoin” in any search engine).
My bitcoin wallet address:
1FUieDeAPMpTpz67aKfr1jsWXmJfvQ6V8w
(It is cAsE sensitive, so copy and paste it).
Important:
You have 2 days in order to make the payment. (I built in an unique pixel to this email, and at this moment I know that you have read this email).
To monitorthe reading of a messageand the activityin it, I set upa Facebook pixel. Thanks to them. (The stuff thatis appliedfor the authorities can helpus.)

In the event I fail to get bitcoins, I'll immediately send your recording to each of your contacts, along with family members, co-workers, etcetera?

The sad part ... looks like this idiot has received three bites on the scam and knocked down about $4,000 US.

Of course, I don't have a web cam, and I don't really care if someone finds out my porn preferences anyway.  But if you receive one of these emails, rest assured it's completely fake. The nitwit didn't hack your computer. The nitwit doesn't have your files, your history, or footage from your webcam. All he has is your email address.

Wow, I See a Long Ago Promise Unkept

When I initially offered the World's Smallest Political Platform, I also promised to write a Statement of Principles in limerick form. That was 13 years ago, and I forgot all about it until the subject of the WSPP came up in a F******k thread. So:


The reason this party's in session
Is to advocate for non-aggression
That may sound a bit dry
But we won't tell a lie
It's our purest, most perfect confession

Well, That Was Quite a Night

Scored free tickets to catch a Grateful Dead tribute act at my favorite local venue.

Headed for the show, right after dropping my last lovingly hoarded hit of blotter, and ...

Ended up watching a flautist and pianist at Gainesville's premier LGBTQ-friendly bar then coming home and listening to some Jethro Tull.

Not bad, I guess, but not exactly what I was expecting of the evening either and kind of a waste of decent acid.

Interesting

So the tweet embedded below is a "re-tweet for entry in a drawing for free tickets" thing. Cool. I'm going to the show. So I re-tweeted.

Then I looked at the other re-tweets. Looks like all or almost all of them are people who just scan Twitter for "this is a giveaway, re-tweet to enter" stuff, even if they don't live anywhere in the neighborhood.

I wonder if the giveaway folks for local gigs look at that when drawing?

Looks like it's gonna be a good show. Even if I have to pay to get in.

Update: W00T! Winner winner chicken dinner! See y'all at the show if you're cool like that.

TICKET GIVEAWAY! TONIGHT! 4/5 Unlimited Devotion - Celebrating the GRATEFUL DEAD - at High Dive! TWO FULL SETS!

Retweet us for a chance to WIN 2 TICKETS to the show!

Winner will be announced at 6PM!@GloryDaysGNV @udsouthflorida pic.twitter.com/hkS2YbPRdu

— High Dive (@HighDiveGville) April 5, 2019

Things Progressives Hate

There's a pretty cool progressive site that publishes almost all of my Garrison columns. Just not the ones that pick at modern American progressivism's conservatism.

Commenting: Everything Old is New Again

Quite some time ago -- maybe as long ago as the late 1990s, but I don't remember for sure -- I came across several sites/browser plug-ins/apps that amounted to "universal commenting." That is, you could go to any web page, click a bookmarklet or browser button, and comment "on" (actually, about) that page, without the owners of the page itself having any say in the matter.

I thought the idea was really cool, but it never caught on. Site commenting got done in-house or via third-party commenting providers that gave site owners moderation control, if it got done at all.

Gab's new site/app/browser extension set, Dissenter, brings back that old idea and seems to be doing better than the old similar models because it's leveraging the same user base that powers Gab itself: People who want to say what they want to say at any site without the site owner being able to set guidelines or just stop them entirely.

Pretty cool.

The next step, which I'm not seeing yet but which seems pretty simple, is a tool set (e.g. Wordpress plug-in) that lets site owners themselves easily opt in by making Dissenter their sites' "official" commenting system. That should already be doable with template edits or whatever. It's just a matter of making it easier.

Five Items of Clothing I Never Find at Thrift Stores

Yes, I do most of my clothes shopping at thrift stores. They have lots of nearly new -- or sometimes, really old and cool -- stuff at a fraction of the price you'd pay elsewhere.

Both of my suits (one a standard light/summer business/wedding/funeral suit, the other a vintage linen suit that a freaking fashion reporter asked me about at the 2016 Libertarian National Convention)  fit like they were tailored for me. Each of them cost less less than ten bucks. They cost to buy less than they cost to have dry-cleaned.

I keep a couple of pairs of "bought new" shoes around, but pick up old Nikes and such when I see them really cheap at the thrift stores. They're for wearing when I mow the yard or lounge around the house or whatever. The "new" stuff is for going out or, occasionally, when I get the "get in shape" bug and don't want to destroy my feet walking or biking.

I buy cheap or cool shirts for a buck or three apiece and don't worry about wearing them out. In fact, once I get too many, I impose a "cut up two for rags for every one you buy" rule so that my wardrobe doesn't get out of control (Tamara always has enough clothing on hand to cover a mid-size city of petite women -- a city I'd very much like to visit).

But here are five things I never seem to find at thrift stores:

1. Levi Strauss 501 button fly jeans. 550 zipper fly Levis I can find all day long. Dockers? Whole racks of them in every size. 501s, no dice. And have you seen what they cost new these days? Back when I worked for Tracker Boats, I got a 20% discount at Bass Pro Shops and the 501s were less than $20 before the discount. Nowadays you're talking $50 or more. Screw that. I got lucky a little while back and found a pair of 501s at a garage sale. My size. New! They hadn't even been washed yet, the store tags were still on them. One. Freakin'. Dollar. SCORE.
2. String ties, bolo ties, and bow ties. I don't like regular neckties very much. I don't like tying them, I don't like wearing them, and I don't like looking like every other dick in a suit wherever I'm going that I need to wear a suit. I usually have to get online to find those things, although I did pick up a cool little brass alligator bolo at a yard sale a couple of weeks ago.
3. White, "buff," or ivory dress shoes. I've been looking for a pair to go with the aforementioned linen suit. I'm simply not willing to spend ten times as much on the shoes as I spent on the suit.
4. Band/concert shirts. It's easy to understand why. People collect those and either wear them until they rot (that's me) or carefully preserve them in boxes (that's not me). If I ever come across, say, a 1993 Grateful Dead at [insert venue here] concert shirt at a thrift store, and I never have, I'll know that either a hippie died or it's a Walmart reproduction.
5. Men's belts that actually fit. If I see a men's belt at a thrift store, chances are it's either for a guy with a 70" waist or a guy with a 24" waist. My theory is that the guys with 70" waists keeled over in the Golden Corral buffet line and their families donated the stuff (there's always plenty of Very Very Large pants and shirts, too), and that the guys with 24" waists gained weight. All the belt sizes in between get worn out, not donated to thrift stores. I finally gave in and paid Amazon $12 for two decent belts recently (I often wear suspenders, and there are always plenty of those at thrift stores).

Not a Review, Just a Musing

Watched The Highwaymen on Netflix last night.




I liked it. The actors involved all turned in strong performances. Everyone (OK, everyone who bothers much with history) knows how the story ends, but the movie gets there well, and from a different viewpoint than previous Bonnie and Clyde pics that I've seen.

But the most enjoyable part for me was ... nostalgia.

Not for the events, really, since Bonnie and Clyde took their dirt naps 32 years before I was born.

Nostalgia for an American terrain that was fast disappearing when I was a kid and is all but gone now.

When I was a kid, growing up astride what was left of Route 66 halfway between St. Louis and Joplin, the Interstate Highway System was still a big freakin' deal. Four lanes of freeway. If you weren't on that, pretty much everything was two lanes. With pavement and ditches if you were lucky, but not always either of the two.

There's a particular gas station in the movie that I remember several of in out-of-the-way locations from my childhood. Not the brand, although the one I remember offhand was a Skelly Oil station. Not the pumps -- I remember seeing some of the older style pumps, no longer in operation, but still rusting on the islands next to the pre-digital "rolling analog numbers" pumps. But the building itself,  maybe 10' x 15', with a gable held up by two square pillars extending out over one side of the two pumps.

One of the cars in the movie has an AM radio in it. I guess having a radio at all was pretty high-end circa 1934. By the time I started driving, AM/FM and maybe a cassette player was standard (CDs as a general commercial proposition were still a couple of years away). But my first car was a year old than I was, and had just an AM radio in it (I wired up an old 8-track tape player I got for a buck at a garage sale).

In most respects, tooling around the southern Missouri countryside by car in the mid-1980s wasn't so wildly different from doing so in the 1930s that either would have been unrecognizable as an experience to someone yanked out of one end of the timeline and plopped down in the other end. Two-lane roads, country general stores and tiny gas stations with their owners' names on them, etc. Cell phones? Hah. If you were lucky, there might be a pay phone within 20 miles.

These days it seems like it's hard (or maybe not so hard, you could ask that there Internet to do it for you) to find 20 miles of two-lane road in a row, and the gas stations, stores, and restaurants at each end of that 20-mile stretch will be mostly national or regional chains.

Which is not to say that I want to go back to those old days. But I do like to visit what's left of them when I can, in real life or on the screen.

As for actual Bonnie and Clyde nostalgia, I've really only got a few bits.

When I was a kid, there was an exhibit that toured the country, claiming to be the car they got shot in. It would pull up in a town, semi-trailer with the car in it, some steps to walk in and out on, and I think it may have been a buck to get in. Was it the real car? I don't know. Looks like the pictures I've seen, complete with bullet holes, shattered windows, and blood all over the place.

Of course, I had to ask my mom about them. Bad people, she said, they shouldn't have made such heroes out of them. She was an infant herself when they got shot, but I guess people were still talking about it years later.

Later I lived in a tiny town -- Reeds Spring, Missouri -- where one of their famous shoot-outs with cops took place (there's still an annual festival celebrating that, I guess, although I never noticed it when I was there).

I Have No Pony and I Must Scream

I finished Vermin Supreme's campaign book, i PONY: Blueprint for a New America yesterday (not an affiliate link).

Watch for my review on Free Pony Express. I'm not sure you'll see it there, but watch for it anyway.

I've Held My Tongue on Jussie Smollett Until Now ...

... for several reasons. I neither believed nor disbelieved his initial story until the narrative started to go south on him and he ended up charged with filing a false police report and such -- after which I just didn't find the whole thing especially interesting. Hate crime hoax stories are pretty common and the only thing distinguishing this alleged hate crime hoax story from most was that it involved an actor I'd never heard of who starred on a show I don't watch.

So now, the charges have been dismissed and the case has been sealed. Meanwhile, Smollett agreed to forfeit his bail and had apparently already done some community service.

I agree that that sounds pretty fishy, and of course it has a bunch of people -- including some Big Names -- upset. Here's the summary I'm hearing from commentators high and low:

"If you're rich and famous, the price of getting off for a felony offense in Chicago is ten grand."

And that just might be the case. But let me offer another possibility:

You haven't really got the goods. You've got a case, but not an airtight case. I'm not pleading. Want to roll the dice with a jury? Fine.

BUT!

Every cop involved, from the officers who initially responded to the scene, to the investigators who drummed up the false police report against me, to the police chief who decided to flap his yap about it in public, is going to go on the stand.

And each and every one of those cops is going to get grilled about each and every episode in his or her career where he or she was accused of false arrest of a black citizen, or of a gay citizen, or of disbelieving a black citizen's complaint or a gay citizen's complaint that turned out to be true.

Did any of those cops ever shoot a black "suspect" who turned out to be an innocent bystander?

Did any of those cops ever decide a domestic dispute wasn't as one-sided as the complainant claimed, tell everyone to calm down and leave, then have to come back a few hours later to process a murder scene?

By the time my lawyer gets done with those cops, the jury will believe they think every black citizen and gay citizen in Chicago is blowing smoke up their asses when a crime gets reported, and that they wouldn't recognize a real criminal if one snuck up behind them and whacked them across their asses with a bass fiddle.

Or you can keep that ten thousand dollars and let it go.

Your call.

Not saying that's how it went down, but I think it's at least as likely as "he's rich and famous, give him a pass."

One of Many Ways to Know You're About to Hear Something That's Completely Wrong

When someone says (or writes) "libertarians and conservatives" or "conservatism and libertarianism" as if the two were similar, you know you're about to be sucked down a rabbit hole of egregious error.

It's not that conservatives and libertarians never agree on anything.

It's that their philosophical groundings are different -- in fact, mutually exclusive -- making any such agreements mere temporary coincidence.

Even a home invasion robber and a home invasion robbery victim might happen to agree that it's better for the victim to hand over the jewelry than be killed. But they're operating from two very different desires.

The robber wants the jewelry and prefers to not have murder charges added to his tab if he's caught.

The victim doesn't want to give up the jewelry and would probably like to see the robber go down as hard as possible if caught.

But the victim wants to live, and the robber happens to have reasons to want to let him live. That's their only commonality.

They're not friends. They're not "kissing cousins." They're not aligned toward the same general goals.

Neither are libertarians and conservatives.

Mueller's Handicap

I've been calling the "Russiagate" "scandal" BS since pretty much the beginning, but I expected Mueller to find some way to assert collusion. I think I've figured out why he didn't, and I can name the tune in two words:

Hillary Clinton.

"Russiagate" was always about finding an excuse, some excuse, any excuse for Clinton's election loss that made it not her fault. Mueller's record is that of a guy who makes sure the establishment always gets what it wants. But in this case, he also had to carefully avoid giving the establishment what it didn't want, which was anything that made Clinton continue to look just as dirty as Trump on the same issues.

There WAS collusion between the Trump campaign and "Kremlin-connected Russians."

But there was ALSO collusion between the Clinton campaign and "Kremlin-connected Russians."

That is, both campaigns tried to tap "Kremlin-connected Russian" sources for dirt on their opponent. Trump campaign people met with a "Kremlin-connected lawyer." Clinton campaign people outsourced their Russian collusion to Fusion GPS and British MI6 agent Christopher Steele.

The only way Mueller could assert collusion without damaging Clinton just as badly as he damaged Trump would be if he found collusion of a very different type or on a vastly larger scale. Calling the collusion he did find "collusion" would just bring Clinton right back into things. It would be a worse problem for the establishment than just saying there was no collusion at all.

Likewise, indicting any Americans with real political clout (as opposed to Russians who'll never see the inside of a US courtroom) on those specific charges (as opposed to hiding money from the tax man and so forth), absent proof of different/worse collusion, would bring us to  another one of those "we can't go after Hillary Clinton because she's Hillary Clinton -- but yeah, anyone else who pulls that kind of shit goes under the jail" moments a la James Comey on Clinton's grossly negligent handling of classified information. Which, really, was the beginning of the end for Clinton in 2016.

Basically, Mueller would have had to catch Trump putting a piece of tape on a telephone pole, then leaving the nuclear launch codes in an envelope under a park bench for an SVR agent to pick up, to "get" him without "getting" Clinton too.

If You Were on @DougStanhope's Email List ...

... you would know what I know. So you should really sign up for that.

Note to Doug: I got married at that very hotel once. Hopefully things will work out better for you.

Second note to Doug: Stop being a primitive troglodyte asshole and get an RSS feed for your podcast, dude.

The Missing Factor

From the St. Louis, Missouri Post-Dispatch:

For the 14th time this year, an Illinois trooper is struck by passing motorist

Authorities say the factors for other crashes involving parked police cars can include people driving too fast, being distracted or not being aware of the law that requires them to move over.

Here's another factor that nobody seems to mention:

Even a few years ago, when a cop pulled a motorist over, the cop then pulled in behind the motorist on the shoulder of the road.

These days, every time I see a cop-stop, the police vehicle is parked catawampus across the right traffic lane of the road, just waiting to be t-boned by someone who didn't notice the flashing lights. At which point physics gets to work and suddenly you have two large pieces of metal flying uncontrolled around the roadway where either or both are likely to hit the cop who's outside writing a ticket, or the parked car on the shoulder, or oncoming traffic, or some combination of those things.

Which seems to be what happened here -- the "passing motorist" also hit the trooper's car, and at the moment they don't know (or aren't admitting they know) whether it was the trooper or his car that got hit first.

I understand the theory -- the cop standing next to the pulled-over car is vulnerable, and if he parks his car catawampus across the road maybe it gives him some protection from that inattentive motorist. On the other hand, there's still some risk to the cop, and there's dramatically increased risk to everyone else on the damn road.

RIP Dick Dale, 1937-2019

I could have sworn I posted this the day he died, but a reader asked me why I hadn't mentioned it, and ... well, obviously I didn't. He was one of the great ones. Here, have a video reminder of why.