Don’t Shoot Me – I’m only the Piano Player

 

 

 

What does C (from MI-6) Think?

(h/t Claudio) (link) Richard Moore, chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6 as it is more commonly known, said Putin was “stringing us along.” “He seeks to impose his imperial will by all means at his disposal. But he cannot succeed,” Moore said. “Bluntly, Putin has bitten off more than he can chew. He thought he was going to win an easy victory. But he – and many others – underestimated the Ukrainians.”

 

Turley on Kimmel

JONATHAN TURLEY: The funniest joke Jimmy Kimmel never told.

“This week, Schiff (D-CA) is outraged by a company’s decision to suspend a host who refused to correct a false story he had spread. For years, I appeared before these same leaders in Congress as they defended corporate censorship and dismissed allegations of collaboration with the government.

I would not cancel Kimmel so long as his show was profitable. But I have long maintained that companies can limit the free speech of employees at work. I do not believe Kimmel should be censored on social media for spreading false information. At the same time, ABC does not have to lose money or viewers because an employee attacks others with vile, false claims.

Now Disney is accused of killing democracy itself, in league with Trump. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) attacked Trump for “trying to destroy our democracy” and acting like “many would-be despots.” Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) used Kimmel’s suspension as evidence that “fascism is not on the way, it is here.” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) insisted that suspending a host for spreading false information about a murder was “North Korea-style stuff.” In contrast, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) insisted that it is “what Putin would do.”

It is a curious spin, since Putin and Kim Jong Un value media figures who spread false information — particularly about murders. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) went so far as to compare Kimmel to Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense and “Penman of the Revolution.” So Kimmel is now a hero of democracy — all he had to do was spread disinformation. That makes this the funniest joke that Kimmel never told.”

In recent news, ABC/Disney has reinstated the odious Kimmel. Trannies, freaks, and misfits will once again feel enfranchised.

Well, that was fast! Sinclair Inc. will still not air Jimmy Kimmel Live! on its 33 ABC affiliate stations even after Disney struck a deal for his return.

 

 

Bullet Points:

** Russian commanders continue to order Russian forces to execute Ukrainian civilians and commit acts of perfidy as part of an ongoing trend of Russian commanders systematizing deliberate war crimes among Russian units.

** Socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro announced on Thursday that his regime will deploy military officials to neighborhoods to teach locals how to “handle weapons” in preparation for a supposed incoming U.S. “invasion” of Venezuela.

** Former Oakland DEI Mayor Sheng Thao has been criminally indicted by a grand jury on corruption charges—bribery, racketeering, and perjury. In 2024, Madam DEI became the first mayor in Oakland’s history to be recalled, following a surge in crime, murder, and homelessness.  The indictment: Thao agreed to give city contracts and appointments to the (local businessmen) Duongs. In return, David and Andy Duong paid for $75,000 in attack ads against Thao’s opponents during her mayoral election. They spent another $95,000 on Andre Jones for a no-show job—promising more—all to benefit Thao and Jones personally.

** The Trump administration on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to let President Trump remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook from office while her lawsuit challenging the president’s authority to fire her winds its way through the courts.

** Kimmel is witless, self-infatuated, smug, hectoring, and dishonest. It’s no coincidence that he’s also redundantly and reactively liberal. His very show is a redundancy in a market awash in painfully predictable pundit-comics. The whole phenomenon exists not to entertain a mass audience but to provide therapy for liberal Americans who’ve let politics ruin their lives over the past decade.

** “Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back.” – Marcus Aurelius

** Vectis stealth drone: Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works has officially unveiled Vectis, a new self-funded Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) which the company describes as a Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA). Announced on Sept. 21, 2025, ahead of the Air, Space & Cyber Conference set to start the following day, the platform is presented as a survivable, lethal, and affordable Group 5 drone aimed at advancing U.S. and allied air dominance.

 

The Law and the Epstein Investigation

Under the law, the reports of any investigation that does not result in an indictment or charges being filed are confidential as to information on witnesses or persons not charged. The same is true for grand jury transcripts.

If the disclosure of the names of Epstein’s associates — without any evidence of criminal wrongdoing on their part — would unduly defame them or otherwise invade their privacy or subject them to scorn or ridicule without cause, then the disclosure of that information would violate the law. In general, Federal law protects non-charged investigative reports through exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the Privacy Act. Specifically, FOIA Exemption 7 protects law enforcement records that, if disclosed, would interfere with enforcement proceedings or constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, among other harms. The Privacy Act generally prohibits disclosure of personal information within agency records without the individual’s consent, subject to various exceptions. Also, it includes its own exemption for law enforcement records compiled for law enforcement purposes.

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)

Purpose: The FOIA establishes a right to access government records, but it also outlines nine exemptions that permit agencies to withhold information under certain circumstances

FOIA Exemption 7: This exemption applies explicitly to records compiled for law enforcement purposes. When a report does not result in charges or an indictment, its disclosure can still be withheld if releasing it would:

– Interfere with enforcement proceedings. Or

– Deprive a person of the right to a fair trial. Or

– Constitutes an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.

– Reveal a confidential source or information.

Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a)

Purpose: The Privacy Act governs the collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of personally identifiable information by federal agencies.

Disclosure Prohibitions: Generally, agencies are prohibited from disclosing records by any means of communication without the prior written consent of the individual to whom the record pertains.

Exemptions: Similar to FOIA, the Privacy Act contains exceptions, including an exemption for information compiled for law enforcement purposes that would reveal an expressed or implied promise of confidentiality to a source.

 

Blood Attonement

(Wikipedia – reference)  The largest Mormon denomination, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), has denied the validity of the doctrine since 1889, with early church leaders referring to it as a “fiction” and later church leaders referring to it as a “theoretical principle” that had never been implemented in the LDS Church. Yet the firing squad option as a means of execution is still a matter of law in Utah.

Historically, if somebody was to be executed, and they thought they were guilty, they’d choose the firing squad and shed their blood in an effort to atone for murder (at least partly) personally. If they maintained their innocence, they’d take the hanging option where no blood was shed.

Erika Kirk forgave Charlie’s murderer at his memorial service, which is an amazing and Christ-like thing to be able to do. I aspire to that kind of grace, but even though I never met Charlie, and can’t possibly feel his loss anywhere near as strongly as she does, I’m not close to being there yet. Utah still uses the firing squad for executions, though lethal injection is its first choice, unless it can’t obtain the necessary drugs, which is often the case.

Utah uses five riflemen (one with a blank in his gun) to carry out executions, and they pin a little target over the criminal’s heart beforehand. I’d like to see a guy accidentally go to pin the target on the killer’s crotch, then go, “Oh, my mistake. I’m sure we’ll all be aiming for your heart.” And then wink at the guy. And possibly lean over and whisper to him, “You know that the real-life fascists are totalitarians who kill people for speaking out against them, right? So Charlie was the anti-fascist, and you are the actual fascist.” And then maybe he could show the guy his bullet, into the casing of which he had carved, “No, YOU catch, fascist!” And if he were REALLY cool, the rifleman could re-enact one of my favorite scenes from the great, Elmore Leonard-inspired TV series Justified. He could hold a bullet out in front of him, and drop it into the creep’s lap, and then say, “The next one’s gonna be coming a little faster.”

I have a lot of work to do on that “forgive your enemies” part of my faith.

 

 

Finding Justice

Pres. Trump is now looking into using RICO laws to go after Antifa. This is one more thing that Trump is doing that conservatives have dreamed about for years, but had given up on ever seeing come to fruition. Ending the federal Education Department was another one of those. That department wasn’t in the Constitution or any of the founding documents – it had only been created in the 1970s. And it obviously didn’t do anything worthwhile: it didn’t train teachers, or improve curricula, or raise test scores. What it did do was fill up a fancy building on some expensive real estate in DC, and employ an army of six-figure educrats who produced nothing of value.

Another former pipe dream had been the defunding of NPR and PBS. Another was building a border wall. And now those three things are a reality, along with a lot more. Another great recent development has been Trump’s blowing up one drug-running boat full of fentanyl after another. There have been three of them so far, and they are awesome for many reasons:

1. They involve exciting videos with a chase scene that ends in a dramatic explosion.

2. They represent a lot of deadly drugs that will never make it to our shores, and a dramatic lesson for would-be Venezuelan drug runners watching their buddies get blown up on tv.

3. They also gave the usual suspects on the left the opportunity to display their own moral imbecility. The same talking heads and pols who could barely muster any concern for Charlie Kirk after he was murdered were full of grave pronouncements about the illegality and horror of those poor drug traffickers, gone too soon. “What about due process, and their now fatherless children? Who is going to teach those youngsters the ins and outs of lethal drug running? “Oh, won’t someone think of the future gang-banging, American-murdering children?!”

4. My Spanish is not too bueno. Does “Tren de Aragua” mean “burial at sea, under mucho agua”?

 

The War Department

How do you feel about the name change? The leftist establishment reacted in two equally wrong ways: some of them said that this was the end of the world, and the rest said that it was just a meaningless semantic change, and so why was Trump wasting his time doing it?

The second group is just wrong. Names of things are essential, and often represent ideological battles lost or won. Many times, giving something a name that sticks represents a stolen rhetorical base that shapes everything that comes afterward.

For example, both parties try to give every bill they pass a name with positive connotations. If you call an obscenely bloated, propagandistic spending bill “The Inflation Reduction Act,” many stupid people will not notice that it inevitably causes inflation to skyrocket.

If you name a quintessentially fascist group – one whose members form “black blocs” of armed thugs and carry out organized violence campaigns to coerce and intimidate citizens – a name like “antifa” (anti-fascist), very, VERY stupid people will cite that name to hold that group blameless. (I’m looking at you, Don Lemon.)

I could go on and on. “Planned Parenthood” is dedicated to wiping out parenthood. The “American Civil Liberties Union” is hostile to the civil liberties of one-half of the country. “The View” is hosted by a bunch of arousal-killing harridans wearing ideological blinders, producing a Ray Charlesian political blindness.

So yes, the War Department sends a very different message from the Defense Department.

I understand why the change was made initially: we are not the typical kind of empire that ground its enemies underfoot, enslaved the defeated peoples, and claimed their lands as our own subjugated provinces.

We won WWII with a War Department, and afterwards, as we looked at Japanese cities that were glowing, and German cities that were smoking, we figured we’d made our point. So we switched to “Defense Department.” Self defense is – or at least used to be! – universally recognized as a legitimate right of all nations. And we wanted to be thought of as a nation that doesn’t start wars, but will sure as hell end them! Which was good, as far as it went. But “defense” doesn’t convey the same impact as “war”. Would Shakespeare’s speech by Marc Antony stir us the way it does if it went, “Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of defense!”? Would World War I carry the same emotional weight if it were called “The Great Defense,” or “The Defense to end all Defenses?” Is anybody going to read “Defense and Peace?” Would anybody be intimidated by a cigar-chomping general growling that “Defense is hell!” Would Isaiah’s dream connote the same promise if he looked to the day when we “beat our swords into plowshares, and study defense no more?”

To summarize the difference between “defense” and “war:” Joe Biden claimed to be “defending” America from drug trafficking, and that took the form of ushering unvetted traffickers across our border, with a “save the date” government form asking them to show up for a court hearing in 5 years. Pres. Trump is waging a WAR on drug traffickers. And that looks like a speed boat racing across the Pacific, before being hit by a Hellfire missile and turned into a flaming wreck, while its gang-banger crew cartwheels into the water, missing a few limbs, crying, “Ayieee! Why didn’t I join Tren de dry land?!”

 

The Old Breed vs the New Breed

The US Navy is heralding something new and almost unthinkable. The Freedom-class littoral combat ship USS St. Louis (LCS 19) has achieved a first-of-its-kind milestone by completing a self-sufficient engine repair at sea, according to the U.S. Navy. On August 21, 2025, while deployed in Tampa Bay, the crew restored propulsion without contractor support, allowing the ship to remain on mission without returning to port. The Navy said the breakthrough highlights ongoing efforts to make Freedom-class ships more resilient and less dependent on shore-based maintenance, a key factor for operational readiness.

The repair was executed after several hours of diagnostic work, corrective actions, and operational testing by the ship’s engineering team. The supply department played a critical role by coordinating the rapid delivery of required spare parts and equipment, which allowed the engineers to complete the repair within the deployment timeline. The chief engineer of St. Louis stated that sailors were able to apply training and technical knowledge to return the engine to operational condition without external intervention. The commanding officer added that the Freedom-class design had initially been envisioned with a heavier reliance on off-hull personnel. The Navy’s current approach is to increase onboard capacity so preventive and corrective maintenance can be performed when needed.

VM Commentary – There was a time when the warship’s crew could carry out routine repairs and almost all simple fixes.  The return to this philosophy is greeted as transformative by the new breed.

 

Identify the Aircraft

1

 

Identify the Ship

2

hints abound

 

3

Identify the ship that is keeping an eye on a Soviet Krivak-class frigate (possibly Storozhevoy) & a Dubna-class tanker in the background.

 

4

She was the last vessel to be built at the HM Dockyard, Portsmouth. She was deployed to the Western Atlantic during the Falklands War as part of the Bristol Group, acting as a close escort for HMS Invincible (R05).

 

5

The ship in the foreground is no longer a “destroyer”.

CDRSAL weighs in:

For a long time running, it has been an eye-rolling joke how off-the-rails, political, and nonsensical ship naming and classification conventions have become.

The classic example is from many of the navies in Europe, where everything has to be a frigate. Even when clearly some are destroyers or even light cruisers: frigates.

All over the place, civilian politicians who are high on the emotion and low on the reason scale of things—and are beset with almost know knowledge of sea power or naval history—think they can make everything soft-soft by not seeming too “belligerent” with their <checks notes> military. They are haunted by the ghosts of other generations and the lingering effects of poor academic thinking.

Whatever. It is all rather silly.

Alas, far too many are invested in this self-defeating and cringeworthy approach to proper classification systems—or are just beset by ignorant habits. That means there is not much that can be done.

However, from Japan, we have indications that, even in a small way, things might be turning in this area.

As a side-note, the ASEV is going to be 14,000 tons…so yes, that’s a cruiser. Heck, the TICONDEROGA CG was only 9,800 tons. The pocket battleship Graf Spee was 14,800 tons.

 

End