We are now living under Mandalorian Rules.

• Never touch your face.
• Avoid large crowds –  if you encounter more than three people in one place, they are likely there to try and kill you.
• If you have to be near others, keep your distance.

May the farce be with you.

Captioned photo credit:  The Untouchables (1987), screenplay by David Mamet

Story copyright © Larry Lambert, 2016-2020

This is a component of a fictional law-enforcement related story that I started in 2016 and it appeared on the blog back then. I’ve since spent some time fleshing it out into a novelette length in my spare time, but frankly, there hasn’t been much of that. It’s the journey of Police Sergeant Michael Francis Xavier Muldoon and his journey through the dystopian world of law enforcement, set sometime in the future.

I hope that you enjoy–

Vigilante Moon, continued

I supervise a foot beat because I’m inept at collecting. I’m simply not a very good earner, and neither are the guys and gals who work for me. The good earners gravitate to vice, narcotics, intelligence and traffic enforcement where the big money is raked in. The elite executive protection and Party Liaison squads who protect police commanders and Party officials and provide drivers and bodyguards to the great and near great don’t have to be good earners. They simply need to be brutal. In the past year we’ve seen slots in Party Liaison go to leading members of the Brotherhood of International Workers and the International Service Employees Union rather than to trained and vetted police officers. One sergeant’s billet in the Public Control Bureau went to a member of the National Transportation Worker’s Local 919 last month, but I think that he landed that because his father is an alderman in the Twenty-Fourth Ward.

I knew Halvard Drummond from when he worked as a shop steward at Reliable Trucking. He moved directly from an army officer’s slot to the shop steward job and now he continued his career path with the police department’s Civil Unrest Division. Such were the sacrifices required by the party.

I mentioned Drummond, because it finally clicked that he, Drummond, was the person who didn’t fit in, outside the window at the Indian Restaurant. He’d been dressed up to pass for a street vagrant, but it was Drummond. The only remaining question was why he was there.

“Dewey, I saw Howard Drummond outside just a minute ago.”

“Was he wearing his army captain’s uniform, his shop steward shirt or his police Gestapo outfit?”

“Neither. He was dressed up like a bum.”

Dewey said, “That’s odd, he’s the sort of guy who likes to let you know he’s there.”

I stepped out into the sunshine and looked around but I didn’t see Drummond. So, I walked out onto the street with my lunch wrapped in a tortilla forming a burrito, and ate as I watched. If you never wore a badge, you won’t know what I’m talking about. Civilians walk the streets or ride on trams and don’t pay attention to the people around them. All I’ve done is watch people and where a civilian wouldn’t see anything amiss, it stands out to a cop, particularly one who walks a beat. Drummond stood out as if he wore a neon sign.

Dewey followed me a moment later. “Do you think it was Drummond, or maybe a bum that looked like Drummond?”

I stared at Dewey.

“Okay, Michael Francis Xavier Muldoon, you’re never wrong about a thing like that.”

“That’s right, I’m not.”

I noticed another bum who looked out of place stood down the street, but it wasn’t Drummond. His eyes were fixed on the Third Interstate Bank building. I crossed the street and walked over to him, finishing my burrito with one last delicious mouthful, and gulping it down, said, “Step into my office.”

He looked up at me. Face well shaved, plump bordering on over-fed, dark eyes in a skull framed by a raggedy, hooded parka, gerry curls drifted out next to his face.

“Pull back the parka hood.” He complied and I saw hair styled with long, greasy ringlets.

Dewey followed me when I walked over. “What do you make of that?” He saw the same thing I did.

I pulled my electroshock blaster/stunner from its holder and twisted the charging handle. It gave off a low hum and vibrated as it powered up. You can say one thing for the Party. They like their troops to be well armed.  In addition to a conventional pistol, I carried the blaster, two conventional hand grenades, two stingball grenades, and a short sword with a sharp blade on one side and an entry blade for chopping doors down on the other. Oh, yeah, and the 245 Gonzales sap.

“Break out identification,” I ordered.

“Don’t have any,” the wealthy-looking man, slumming in low street clothing replied.

No bum would ever say that because failure to identify always ended badly for them. I put his age at somewhere between thirty and thirty-five. His eyes darted to me, then to Dewey, then back to mine. “If he wasn’t there, I’d take you, flatfoot.”

Dewey still walked like a police sergeant, talked and behaved like a police sergeant and kept his lion-colored hair hair spiked in what had become the police fashion.

What to do?

I did what anybody on the beat should do.  I fired a blaster round at him. Each blaster fired up to forty rounds called ‘bees’ that were about the size and shape of a large bumblebee. Each bee had a potent enough charge to put a horse or cow on the ground and into convulsions. They completely incapacitated a healthy human being. If the human being in question had health issues, it could be fatal.

It wasn’t fatal to the fake bum, because I only fired two bees, but it did put him into convulsions.  I hadn’t deactivated the bees and they continued to send a gazillion volts through him.  So he bucked and twitched, foamed at the mouth like a rabid dog and his bladder and intestines voided. Only then did I deactivate the bees.

Dewey walked back into his pawnshop once I handcuffed the bum. He watched from a distance because he’d done the same sort of thing himself countless times and knew that encapsulation was coming. When I keyed the microphone, it sent out a GPS signal with my precise coordinates. There are also GPS transponders that we’re supposed to wear, but none of those work.

I called for the Short Bus on the radio for a transport.  The armored three-ton “Short Bus”  (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) six-wheeled paddy wagon roared up while he was still twitching, though now handcuffed and searched.

Corporal Bruce (Blue Moon) Mooney worked for me and drove the armored car that was mine-proof, bullet-proof, grenade-proof, everything but idiot-proof.

“What ya got, Sarge?”

Mooney had a long, hang-dog, wrinkled face. He’d been on the job twenty longer than me and had a serious alcohol problem, which is why he drove the wagon. It was almost impossible to dent the Short Bus no matter what you hit, and he hit a lot of things when he was in his cups.

I handed Mooney what I found on the guy. “His name is Mark Fuller and he’s carrying army credentials, even though he’s out of uniform. He’s also got a small army issue handgun.”

Mooney bagged the ID and gun, then I handed him the magazine I’d taken from the pistol. “It’s one of those fancy pistols that only fires if the DNA of the trigger puller matches the chip in the weapon.”

“Exploding rounds.” Mooney marveled.

“That means he’s either a very good army imposter, a deserter or he’s a soldier here on the street out of uniform, wearing long, curly hair, with a yen to hurt a cop.”

“Did he try anything on you, Sarge?”

“He wanted to, but I blasted him for good measure before he got the chance.”

“Good thinking.”

“The word is ‘proactive’, Corporal.”

I helped Mooney lift Soldier Mark Fuller into the coffin on the back of the wagon. They aren’t real coffins. They look like metal coffins and we use them to transport incapacitated prisoners. It’s officially called encapsulation. You dump the prisoner in the coffin and it’s moved into position on top of the wagon by means of a hydraulic hoist.

Before the coffin snapped shut, Drummond walked up to me, dressed in his bum clothing.

“The damned blasters are effective.” Drummond observed dispassionately, “But you’ll have hell to pay.” Then he looked up at me, because I’m taller than he is.  “Yeah, they’re with me. They’re from the Federal Protective Police.”

The coffin lid snapped shut. Mooney toggled the hoist.

“Nobody told me about an operation in my district, Drummond. The rules call for me to be informed. If I’m not, I’m not responsible for any pre-emptive action I take.”

“The Protective Police can do more or less anything they want because they guard the Party’s elite.”

“He doesn’t have police identification. He has army identification, he’s out of uniform, and he may be a fancy fed, but he wasn’t blaster-proof was he?”

Drummond’s voice grew plaintive, “I said he was with me, Sergeant Muldoon.”

“How many times have you busted my chops, Drummond?”

The coffin clanked home on top of the wagon and the retaining latches engaged.

Drummond shrugged. “Fuck ‘em. Frankly, Muldoon I don’t care much about the guy. He treated me like a local.”

“You are a local,” I pointed out politely, “and so am I.”

“I was an army officer, a federal officer,” Drummond said somewhat wistfully.

“You’re a Party man. You do what the Party says, right?” Drummond looked at me hard and I saw for once that he wasn’t all together pleased with who he was. I filed it away and slapped the armored flanks of the wagon. Blue-black smoke belched from its smoke stacks as it powered up and lumbered from the curb into the street.

—

Lieutenant Rudolph Chang, even more of a lush than Corporal Mooney, served as the watch commander and my immediate boss for the South Side. Drummond called ahead so Chang was aware of something afoot, but neither he nor Drummond cracked the coffin with Soldier Mark Fuller, or whatever his real name was, still stuffed in it. In fact, Drummond was nowhere to be seen.

A couple of hours had passed since Mooney hoisted it onto the wagon. I didn’t like being called a flatfoot, so I let the situation mellow. I imagined that it was getting ripe in there – and hot. Oxygen ported into the coffins by way of ducting so unless he vomited and aspirated it, it was unlikely he’d die from asphyxiation while confined. But if he wasn’t dead, he’d be conscious and furious inside the coffin with his full trousers getting raunchier. The early coffins allowed prisoners to claw the lid from the inside, but these formed a tight seal and it was hell for people with the slightest hint of claustrophobia.

I met the lieutenant near the wagon. Mooney stood more or less to attention.

“Muldoon, what are you doing out there on my streets?” Chang asked. His Asiatic eyes were narrowed to even finer slits than they had been.

“Earning, Lieutenant Chang.”

A light went on in Chang’s more or less pickled mind and his eyes opened, hopeful. “What did you come up with, Muldoon?”

“Contraband alcoholic beverage, no tax stamps. A whole case of Tullimore Dew export grade.” Dewey gave me the case to bring in with me because he thought somebody was going to be upset about the electroshocked fed.

Chang pulled me aside by the arm, out of earshot from Corporal Mooney. “Where did you find it?”

“Not far from where I arrested this guy. I think maybe he’s an army deserter and had the stash.” Untaxed alcohol is a very serious crime as are all crimes where a Party stamp is required on goods.

“Someone is coming to collect the prisoner, but there is no need to indict a young soldier for that sort of indiscretion, is there?”

“For wanting a drink? Certainly not, Lieutenant Chang. Perhaps you could book the evidence, or destroy it. It’s not a task I want to delegate to Corporal Mooney because he’s a man given over to drink and might consume some of the contraband in the process of its destruction.”

“I agree to take charge of it. Where might it be?” Lieutenant Chang licked his lips involuntarily.

I handed the lieutenant the keys to my black Mariah, the armored cruiser that I drove – perquisite of a sergeant because of Party membership. “It’s in the back, under a blanket.”

Lieutenant Chang took the keys and that’s the last I saw of him on that shift. I found the keys to my car on his desk later that day.

“Drop the coffin, Mooney. Let’s see what we have inside.”

Mooney had the coffin half-way down when Captain Wilbur Drake walked up into the enclosed bay, called a sally port, that held the Short Bus. Two civilians in natty business suits followed him.  One short, the other taller than I am.

Drake had an anger problem as severe as Chang’s drinking problem. He always traveled with a full head of steam.

“I think you pissed off Captain Drake.” Mooney said to me.

“You’ve got a remarkable grasp of the fucking obvious, Blue Moon,” Captain Drake told Corporal Mooney. Drake is known for his remarkably acute hearing. Some credit that and that alone to his rise in the ranks to Captain. Others attribute his rapid promotion to a wife that didn’t hesitate to pleasure superior officers who had the power to recommend for promotion.

Drake talked a good game when he chewed me out, but he used to work for Dewey when he’d started on the department and as a result, I know where the skeletons are buried. I always took the reprimands with due humility, but knew that he knew, that there were limits. For the most part, he’d yell at me in public to let everyone know I didn’t enjoy any special privileges.

“One of these days, I’m going to grab you by the stacking swivel and shake the stupid out of you, Muldoon.”

“I’m a poor excuse for a sergeant, Captain Drake.”

Drake ordered, “Drop the goddamned coffin and let’s have a look at this—pride of the Federal Government.”

Mooney lowered the coffin to the concrete deck and toggled the release button. Air hissed and the retaining latches snapped open.

Agent Fuller sat up, forming a ninety-degree angle with his waist as the pivot point.  He sucked in a deep breath. My eyes began to water from the corrupt smell erupting from the coffin. Vomit, shit, piss and every other possible leakage from a human orifice each had their own peculiar offensive smell. When combined, the synergistic effect made me want to puke, but I didn’t.

“I’m gonna kill you cop!” Fuller croaked, looking up at me through puffy, red eyes.

The shorter of the two feds spoke up.

“Shut your cock holster, Fuller.”

Fuller closed his mouth as ordered.

I went away with the feds and Captain Drake while Mooney took a fire hose to Soldier Fuller, or whoever he really was, and the inside of the coffin. Thankfully, the interior of those coffins are designed to be washed and reused without much more than a fire hose blast.

The shorter Fed identified himself to me Erasimo Tambunga. Many of them take African-style names because it is the fashion and demonstrates their commitment to African heritage whether they are genuinely Africans, part African, or not. Soldier Fuller’s skin had a milk chocolate luster. Tambunga had skin black as anthracite, but it was a pigment enhancer that he’d taken. If you want to play to trends, you get a skin job.

“Fuller is a trench monkey, Sergeant Muldoon. I’m sorry if he caused you any trouble.” That sort of language coming from a fed constituted an ominous change in behavior. My guard snapped up though my face remained a mask of appreciation. “But he’s out there on the street on a special mission. Alderman Wlibur Quail is missing and we suspect foul play.”

“This is the first I’ve heard of that.”

Tambunga said, “I argued for letting the locals know but it’s a Party matter first when one of our leaders is unaccounted for.”

“Can I tell my men to be on the look-out, Agent Tambunga?”

“You can call me Erasimo, and yes I think that it’s time we put the word out that Alderman Quail may be the victim of foul play. As a police sergeant, you know that subversive elements remain in our model society no matter how well off the citizens are. There was even a serpent in Eden, Sergeant Muldoon.”

We created this worker’s paradise when we became Sheeople, and the greed of the common man overcame his willingness to work for the good of all. The myriad of labor unions and the Party itself formed a living, breathing thugocracy that existed to serve its own ends.  We were divided and then we were conquered by our own.

—

Ehigie, called Eggy, ran Rubin’s Deli, the Rubin family having moved on two decades previously. He hailed from Nigeria and didn’t talk much about his life there. Eggy didn’t talk much about anything. People rarely came to the deli because he served Nigerian food and there were very few Nigerians in the city.

Dewey thought that the local politics were foolish. Eggy didn’t talk to Silky Jackson, who ran Girls-Girls-Girls because Silky was a high yellow negro and Eggy’s skin was so black that very little light reflected, at least that’s how Dewey saw it. It turned out that the strip bar that Silky built near his dining establishment had offended Eggy’s sense of modesty. People misunderstood race to mean agenda.

As I mentioned, Nelson Begay ran an Indian restaurant – Not a restaurant serving East Indian food. Nelson served southwestern cuisine because he came from Gallup, New Mexico, not from Bombay or Calcutta.

And me? When Tambunga told me about the Wilbur Quail abduction, I became as alert as a mouse at a cat show. When had Wilbur been abducted? Marie Watts almost raped me after work a week ago, probing about what I knew about what. Marie was the station clearing barrel, and a tool of upper management. The term clearing barrel refers to the red, sand filled barrels used to verify that small arms are unloaded before turn in. Police officers preparing to turn in weapons line up and dry fire their rifles into the barrel. Some called her the ‘department groundsheet’. The presence and agenda of Marie Watts made me wearily contemplate some idiotic or malicious decisions by higher-ups. She never appeared unbidden. But maybe, just maybe it had something to do with Alderman Quail.

Advanced as we had once become, we were hurtling backwards into a new dark age. I saw it every day, felt it with every sunset and retrospective glance at the day before. In the story of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, the main character, Hank Morgan, a mechanic in an arms manufacturing plant woke up one day in King Arthur’s England. He did everything that he could to advance the backwardness of the peasants and royalty alike, but in the end it all came to naught, as the people were forgetful and more comfortable in their ignorance. All of the advancements he made to the civilization in which he found himself were wasted, and there’s the nugget of truth for today’s civilization. Perhaps it had something to do with the end of reading as a pastime. People preferred to be force-fed trivia through video screens and pads. Electronic games replaced learning by offering endless entertainment.

I might be a police sergeant supervising a street squad, but I could read contraband books the same as everyone else. In fact, other than the job and a wife who generally ignored me, the books were all that I had.  They told an ancient story that repeated itself over and over again through the ages, and in a weird sense, told my story.

We put ourselves in the same place that the Roman Empire found itself. The people who built and forged the institutions that made the nation great had long been dead by the end. Men like Scipio couldn’t reach out and teach the later offspring about life and how to wage war. Adaptation to the police state and thugocracy that I myself perpetuated was easier than struggling to keep things strong. Values were replaced by emotion and unbounded greed. It had become greed, more than anything else that bound the society. Every institution in the country had become corrupt at the Party’s urging. We became slothful, and failed in our basic responsibility to the generations to follow. A nation built upon optimism and faith, which sloughs off its beliefs will descend into hedonism, decadence and fatalism. And some operative in police management sent Marie Watts, the clearing barrel, to me to seduce information out of me that I didn’t have. It’s simply how things were done now.

Of course, I knew who had Wilbur Quail on ice. Who else? John Dewey had authored a training course on planned political kidnapping, he had a secret room under the Third Interstate Bank and he sat on a pile of cash from the armored car heist. He had the motivation, the skill and the bankroll along with the natural vindictiveness that all police officers harbored toward the politicians who treated us like servants or pawns in their power struggles.

When the complete novelette, Vigilante Moon is available, there will be a notice on this blog.

For those of you who can’t be stumped

Puzzler: What is this US warplane, used in the Korean War

You guys are hard to stump – but this one is tough. Answer at the bottom of the blog.

This in answer to Rob’s question:

Coronavirus Cases per 100k Population, past 7 days. The death count is far below these numbers, and with advanced therapeutics, unless you’re very ill already (like stage 4 liver cancer), the plague won’t take you.

This is for Fredd

Copy and Paste for Everyone else?

Biden Street Sign

Some of you may not have seen many vote for Biden signs, but here’s one.

Answer: Tachikawa Ki-9, left over from the Japanese occupation of Korea and pressed into service. It’s not a US MADE warplane but it is a US warplane…

There is nothing new under the Sun.

Identify the Glider and the Tank

Answers at the bottom of this blog.

Re-Purposed

The Vought OS2U Kingfishers were assigned to battleships and cruisers to spot naval gunfire. When radar came along, they were repurposed to scout for U-boats while escorting convoys across the Atlantic Ocean. The problem came that the capital ship had to stop for a period of time to recover the Kingfisher, during which time they were vulnerable to a U-Boat’s torpedo.

The Brits need to put more stuff on it.

Is that the right handgun for her?

Identify the Tank and the Glider – answer – British GAL. 49 Hamilcar Mk.I glider and American Light Tank M22 Locust

The Ilyushin Il-2 or Shturmovik was a ground-attack aircraft produced by the Soviet Union in very large numbers during the Second World War (Great Patriotic War). With 36,183 units of the Il-2 produced during the war.

In final summery, the aircraft was a piece of Russian flying junk, but they built 36,183 of them (allowing many German fighter pilots to rack up impressive kill records at their expense). The quality of pilot training was poor and most of the squadrons were directed by ground controllers who tightly choreographed what they should do. If you departed from the directions and survived the mission you would likely be shot and replaced. It was not a great time to be a Russian ground-attack pilot.

Frankly, the looters and arsonists are picking the wrong targets. There are much juicier targets than the shops on Madison Avenue and Fifth Avenue.

The Star’s homes house a collection of the finest wares in the world, and they’re all ‘woke’, and wouldn’t mind if somebody paid them a visit, stole what they wanted and set the place on fire, would they? No.

A lot of stars are paying to promote looting and pillaging. They’d welcome a little more attention, because if there is one thing about Hollywood types, they are ATTENTION WHORES.

In fact, there is little that would be more ‘woke’ than traveling to various ghettos and handing out maps.

In New York City the DA won’t prosecute and they don’t require you to post bail if you’re caught. But we know that actors wouldn’t press charges anyway, would they? Of course not.

In Los Angeles they are significantly de-funding the police, so there’s not going to be anyone to catch you anyway.

If you’re thinking of gifting something to somebody who would appreciate it, think no further. I believe that I could use a Ferret as a ranch vehicle…and to support local efforts to keep the great unwashed masses in line.  Buy here. I prefer the Mark 2/3 with the turret, but any model will do.

I first came into contact with this cool little scout car in Northern Ireland:

The Ferret armored car, also commonly called the Ferret scout car, is a British armored fighting vehicle designed and built for reconnaissance purposes. The Ferret was produced between 1952 and 1971 by the UK company Daimler. It was widely adopted by regiments in the British Army, as well as the RAF Regiment and Commonwealth countries throughout the period.

An ambitious American manufacturer could start building them for American domestic use (in private hands) during the “troubles” here. I mean, if the government is going to defund the police, we’ll need to start commuting in these.

There are variants to the basic armored car”

Mk 1 – (FV701C) No turret

Mk 2 – 2-door turret from Alvis Saracen APC
Armament .30 Browning MG

Mk 2/3 – rebuilt to new specification
Armament .30 Browning MG

Mk 4 – (FV711) Reconnaissance vehicle with 2-door turret from Alvis Saracen APC

Ferret Armored Car Specifications

Weight 3.7 t
Length 12 ft 2 in (3.7 m)
Width 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m)
Height 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m)
Crew 2 (commander, driver)
Main armament – 7.62×51mm NATO GPMG
Engine Rolls Royce B60 Inlet over Exhaust I6 petrol
130 hp (97 kW)
Power/weight 35.1 hp/ton
Drive train 4×4
Operational range -190 mi (310 km)
Speed 58 mph (93 km/h)

That baby would look mighty good with an Arizona license plate on it.

Leap Frog

I spend at least four hours a day on the phone for work. I talk to people and they talk to me. I’ve noticed an international trend and I’ve bounced it off some people. The most colorful response to my request about Biden’s Handlers was, “It’s like nude leap-frog day at the queer bathhouse.” People hopeful of gaining benefits from a Biden presidency only have to pay-to-play and then insert themselves into the leap-frog game.

During the eight years of Obamanation it was pay-to-play. It’s how Obama went from being essentially penniless to being worth several hundred million dollars during two presidential terms. The Clintons kicked in as well and were able to send Hillary (SECSTATE) globetrotting around the world, bag in hand representing the US and the Clinton Global Initiative (now defunct that she’s out of power). In short, they did things the Chicago way.

Today, since Biden is essentially brain dead (but he can fog a mirror), his handlers are running for president. In some cases they are the same handlers who manage AOC.

Mexican Drug Cartels, Russian Oligarchs, all of China, and Iran, to name but a few, have primed the pump and crossed their fingers. They want to go back to the good old days.

This is how it worked four years ago. If you wanted access to Barack or Valerie Jarrett or some of the close influencers, there were about a dozen people who managed access. I knew one of them quite well. You took 50K in cash to the access managers (all Democrat Party Hacks) and would usually have to bring another $100K which would be handed off before you met with the great man. Unless you had a big problem, and the amount skewed upward from there.

Biden ran the vice presidency like his personal Individual Retirement Account, sending Hunter to Ukraine or China as the family bag man. You know those stories and I won’t re-hash them here.

Access Managers

I hear some of you asking yourselves what it would take to be an ‘access manager’. All you need to do is to become a Democrat Party hack. Once you’re trusted, the world flows to you. You will be named a fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics or at the New Politics Institute, a think tank of the New Democrat Network. You’ll be appointed to serve on the advisory board to nonpartisan organizations such as Why Tuesday? that encourages increased voter participation. Or You’ll get a fellowship to Media Matters, the Big George Soros organization that delivers talking points to the Donkeys in the media every day. Eventually you’ll found a consultancy. You may become a contributor on CNN (the most trusted name in news).

But wait, that’s not all!

You will consult with a number of leading non-profits and corporations, all of which will give to Black Lives Matter and Antifa liberally (after all you are a liberal). Corporations that you recognize such as. Humane Society of the United States, Planned Parenthood, the American Cancer Society, Best Friends Animal Society, Monster.com, Toyota, Daimler AG, SES Americom, Corning Inc., LabCorp, IBM, Lionsgate Films, Best Buy, McDonalds, Pepsi, and Wave Systems. All of them will pay you a princely amount to help them manage their danegeld. 

But wait, that’s not all!

When you travel to foreign lands you will be treated by various heads of state as a visiting prince as you arrive in the Gulfstream 6 that they sent for you to travel in. Nothing is too good for you. Your particular sexual tastes will be indulged (in the extreme), the finest liquor, the best chefs in the world, and you’ll leave with new gold wrist watches, baubles and trinkets. Maybe a new Rolls Royce or Ferrari, depending on how you roll. They’ll be in the driveway of your mansion when you return, keys in the ignition, properly registered and insured.

But wait, that’s not all!

You’ll be invited to Hollywood parties, you’ll do drugs with your favorite stars and f&%k them if you want to. You’ll hobnob with luminaries of the entertainment world, media moguls, starlets, producers, and executives. Again, your particular sexual kinks will be indulged to an extent you never thought possible. You’ll be invited to the Academy Awards and while you won’t walk the red carpet, you’ll be there, in the back, with invitations to the right parties. You want to go to Epstein’s Island (back before he was whacked), your seat is reserved.

And you don’t even have to be a politician or kiss a baby. Write the proper words for the teleprompter (which Barack couldn’t live without and neither can Joe) and give them gilded paperwork to sign.

So you can see that these access managers have a stake in keeping their jobs

(above) The liberals who scream for an open border with Mexico don’t realize that the cartels will sell weapons to anyone who wants to buy them in the US – just like drugs.

Cartel Update

(LINK) (h/t Steve S.)

Texas Air National Guard Colonel Daniel Steiner (USAF-TXANG Ret), responds to a Q and A and I will just offer an opinion rather than taking the Brietbart article bullet point by bullet point.

Eliminating Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) and the Cuinis, who handle the money laundering for the cartel are the first priority for US Government.

A better question to ask is “who runs Mexico”? The drug cartels have for at least the past twenty years. Today more than ever. I spent a lot of time in Mexico working for USGOV on these issues, and I’m sure that there are better and more informed experts than I am, but DEA still turns to me for answers, and I pitch in where and when I can.

CJNG has some issues with their current management structure that I will not go into, but it’s got nothing to do with US efforts or MEXGOV efforts.

Chapo was flown around by SEDENA (Mexican Army) in Blackhawk Helicopters provided to Mexico by the United States. It’s not a rumor, it’s a fact.

At one point, I was in Los Mochis, SIN, meeting with a drug kingpin with the knowledge of USGOV – back when I was working down there a lot more than I do now. We met at the Starbucks downtown. Then we drove to the Quatro Milpas airport, between Los Mochis and Batamote, and the kingpin got in his airplane and flew off. There was a debriefing that included DEA people.

DEA – “So you just met him in the Starbucks, in the open?”

LL – “Yes, it’s his Starbucks. He holds court there.”

DEA – “Where were the police?”

LL – “They formed a perimeter outside so that we could meet in peace.”

DEA – “And you just caravaned to Cuatro Milpas?”

LL – “Transido de Estado (Mexican Highway Patrol) handled traffic on the highway and provided an escort for SEDENA (Mexican Army) vehicles and the kingpin.

DEA – “What happened at Cuatro Milpas (airport)?”

LL – “The Army formed a perimeter, we finished our meeting and he got into his airplane (I provided tail numbers) and flew off.”

DEA was not allowed into Sinaloa and Los Mochis in particular. I had a different remit and was INVITED by the kingpin to meet. So I did. Knowing your enemy is important. The kingpin thought that too.

So, dear readers, how much control do you think that the cartels have over the police, the highway patrol and the Mexican Army?

This meeting happened during the Obama Administration and the details were shared among a very few high ranking officials in USGOV. The only one in the White House who showed an interest was VP Joe Biden. Our fellow blogger, Beans, and those who have worked this sort of thing understand how reporting and “grading of reports (IRRs)” works in USGOV.

Special Reports:

Drug cartel ‘narco-antennas’ make life dangerous for Mexico’s cell tower repairmen

Jalisco New Generation Cartel Shows Mexican President Who’s Boss

Bikers for Trump

Trump-supporting Bikers have agreed to ride once more. This time in an effort to liberate the illegal ANTIFA occupation of Seattle’s Capital Hill neighborhood, now called CHAZ. If the police won’t do it, the bikers vow to set things right. On Independence Day. Let’s face it, it gives them something to do other than hang out at a BBQ.

The siege may be lifted first, but don’t count on it. Worst case, watch the events unfold on your flat screen while YOU are BBQing. Social distancing and the plague seem to be in the r/v mirror.

Begging for Soy in Antifastan (Spectator)

In Robert Heinlein’s I WILL FEAR NO EVIL, he predicted the absence of police in ‘Abandoned Areas’ where no police went, save in armored cars, and as creative as Heinlein was, he wasn’t prescient enough to call this dystopian urban wilderness, CHAZ.

I encourage you all to read the article from The Spectator, cited above, and take note of the historical reference.

From one of the denizens of the new jurisdiction, who goes by the brilliantly unattractive Twitter handle of @anarchomastia (who we are given to believe is a person of, shall we say, exotic tastes in sexual behavior and gender):

The homeles [sic] people we invited took away all the food at the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone.

We need more food to keep the area operation. please if possible bring vegan meat substitutes, fruits, oats, soy products, etc. – anything to help us eat

CHAZ, the race-free, police-free, genderless home of free-food and free college education utopia.

One delightful side benefit to the progressive anarchist “independent nation” is that they selected the most progressive, leftist neighborhood in Seattle to occupy. Now the gender ambiguous rich Democrats who live(d) in Capitol Hill will get a taste of what they’ve been begging for, for so long. Except that the vermin now want to eat THEIR food and live in THEIR homes. I wonder if that will change a few attitudes?  I wonder if they’re enjoying the summer of love as their property values plummet and their insurance costs soar?

Maybe the rich progressives who live(d) in the newly occupied zone will take up a collection to feed the mob in perpetuity? It would be the progressive thing to do.

I didn’t want to comment on the looting in Minneapolis before now because the predicate act for the discontent of the inner city  went like this:

George Floyd, committed a felony by passing counterfeit US currency. I don’t know how much he had, and where else he’d passed it. but the Minneapolis police caught up with him. Reading the tea leaves, he was a big guy and didn’t go quietly. He may have had a panic attack. At some point, the police put him on the ground because he was resistant at some level. We’ll see that when the body cam footage is made public (if it ever is).

Police officers may use reasonable force. They didn’t gas Floyd, shock him with a taser, club him with batons or shoot him. They did put the big man on the ground.

We’ve all seen the photos and it looked bad. But the Postmortem showed that he was not asphyxiated, his neck was not broken. He likely had a heart attack while he was on the ground, struggling. He had a history of heart disease.

The police have a duty to care for a prisoner in custody and they failed in that responsibility. Because of that, one or more will be charged with manslaughter. Whether or not the manslaughter was voluntary or involuntary has yet to be determined, but it will likely be involuntary if they were following the department’s use of force guidelines.

This will disappoint the inner city people and progs who would like to see the police executed.

Summaries

George Floyd shouldn’t have been out committing felonies by passing counterfeit currency. The Minneapolis Police Department should have taken better care of George Floyd. That doesn’t mean that he would not have had a heart attack or a stroke while in custody, but the police are not without significant blame. If he was in medical distress, they could have called paramedics. The looters were looting for the fun of it. They didn’t care about the 170 businesses they destroyed or about the deceased, George Floyd. It was an excuse to burn and steal.

George Floyd lost. He died.

The Minneapolis Police in general lost a police station. And somehow they retained a police officer who has regularly received sustained complaints of abusive behavior. Never a good idea.

The four officers involved in the poorly handled arrest of George Floyd lost their jobs, their careers and some may lose their freedom for a short term.

The getto city of Minneapolis lost businesses that will not return. People lost their livelihoods, people lost their homes when low income housing was burned. There won’t be neighborhood stores for the poor to shop at.

The poor neighborhoods lost effective police service. In the future officers will take their time responding to calls, allowing the George Floyds of this world to escape. The officers will take reports, and little more. The poorer the neighborhood, as a rule of thumb, the better off the poor are when the police aggressively pursue criminals. The police have a duty to care for an arrested person, but there is no legal duty to respond quickly, or to respond at all.

The Minneapolis Police Department will find it difficult to recruit the best and brightest. Not that they did that in the past, but it will be tougher in the future. The median salary at MPD is $60K/year. The starting pay is much lower. Morale will hit rock bottom after they abandoned a police station to rioters. They will be mocked by officers from other agencies. Removing the yellow stain will take decades. The qualified officers will lateral transfer elsewhere. The dregs that nobody wants will remain – and be promoted.

What are the odds?

I had an argument with an idiot at a gun store and wanted to post a picture. For any of you that think that an M-1 Carbine is just a shortened M-1 Garand.

The M1 Garand fires a .30-06 cartridge – a rifle cartridge. The M1 Carbine fires a .30 carbine cartridge, essentially a pistol round.

At the risk of touting my oracle credentials, three years ago, I saw this train coming down the tracks and did a CALEXIT. The elites were not content with President Trump’s anti-globalist agenda and it was costing them money. And they control most of the propaganda machine including the management at Fox News. Controlling information was something that Obama tried with very little success. That was tightened up during President Trump’s administration and now during the Biden regime, it will get a lot tighter.

• People are fleeing California for Texas and Idaho
• Illinois, New York, and New Jersey are the three states with the most outbound moves.
• The top five inbound states in 2020 are Idaho, Arizona, Tennessee, South Carolina, and North Carolina, with Tennessee overtaking South Carolina from the 2019 results.
• Florida, Texas, and Colorado round out the top eight states for inbound moves.
• Despite pandemic, people continued to move at rates comparable to 2019

Of course, the problem with this it isn’t only patriots who are fleeing like refugees.

Somewhere, somehow somebody
Must have kicked you around some
Tell me why you want to lay there
Revel in your abandon
Honey, it don’t make no difference to me baby
Everybody’s had to fight to be free
You see you don’t have to live like a refugee, etc.

There are also leftists leaving the places that their spiritual dopplegangers/brethren ruined. The Californication of Colorado is legendary. Blue states may begin to fold – there is a lot of talk about that. The Feds are likely to bail their donkey buddies out but will it be enough – and will the rest of the country tire of it?

Texas’ population is getting more and more concentrated.

Old NFO, Amarillo didn’t make it onto this map…

Meme-o-the-Day

This is for Raven

Photo above: Airbus A-400M, used to deploy French parachute regiments, who have reinvented the star – last article on this blog post.

Welcome to your Sunday Sermonette – Isn’t it time for black people to give back? What about reparations?

The only question is how much should the descendants of hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers who died or were wounded to free negro slaves be paid by the descendants of the slaves who were freed.

Trends in US National Elections

How has your state has shifted?

The Marshall Plan

• Blue: Countries that received the Marshall Plan
• Sky Blue: Colonies of countries that received the Marshall Plan
• Red: Countries that applied for the Marshall Plan but withdrew after the Soviet Union invaded them.

The Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program, was a U.S. program providing aid to Western Europe following the devastation of World War II. It was enacted in 1948 and provided more than $15 billion to help finance rebuilding efforts on the continent ($15 billion then was a lot more than it is now).

The French Re-Invent the Star

It’s a mixed up world, but at least, it’s Friday!

Somebody did a study on the color of blue jeans (Levis) that people prefer, by US State. I had no idea that the color varied so widely, but it’s Friday, and I don’t want to overwhelm you with things …yet.

I’m going to complain for a moment on the high cost of life. Ok, it’s nothing like living in the UK or Europe, so indulge that caveat if you will. But it’s still expensive to live. Let me throw down a few examples: Car Insurance. I have USAA and it’s a great company with great rates and they treat you VERY WELL. Better than I’ve ever been treated by an insurance company, but the premiums are still high for 4 vehicles with a perfect driving record.  Then a rock smacks into the windshield and creates an immediate unrepairable crack. I’m loath to make a glass claim, but the cost of a new windshield (with labor) is nearly $700.00. It’s zero deductible and they send a guy all the way to the White Wolf Mine to repair it – I would have driven to somewhere. I’m not angry, I don’t begrudge parts and labor. But it drives home the point that I have to keep my rates ridiculously high. I just raised them and winced when I did. But ANYTHING to do with a car, even a minor thing, is near or over $1,000. And don’t get me started on everything else.  Ok, on with the blog.

Weird Airplanes

Just because you can, doesn’t necessarily mean that you should.

Donkeys – doing what Donkeys do.

When you burn your neighborhood stores, they won’t be rebuilt if insurance companies won’t underwrite the project. But the BLM people neither care, nor do they look ahead. They’re a terrorist Marxist organization. The welfare of black people is the very last thing that they are after.

The US divided into 55 commuter regions

US-Mexico border homicide rates per 100k people per year

The California Wasteland

Some people are shocked that California is starting to look like a third world nation. Of course they blame President Trump.

The “Green New Deal” energy philosophy is delivering the sort of power to California that one would expect. Rolling black outs have become the “new normal”.  And because they want to blame President Trump for wildland fires, the Democrats are lighting them (along with rioting). A friend recently asked me whether Californians are all insane. I said that they are not. There are a lot of really nice, smart, polite Republicans left there, but they are in the minority in the inner cities where the rot has taken hold.

This is for Beans

Modern male society is largely emasculated. There has been a concerted effort to do that since the 1960’s and when we look at the response people have to rioting and looting, I’d say that they’ve been largely successful. Look at the young men that universities turn out. Not all, but by in large – metrosexuals who are terrified of the very thought of drinking from an enemy’s skull. And what do women really think of that? Many have a difficult time finding a man – but there are a lot of biological males out there.

The trend needs to be reversed if we are to survive as a society.

I know that there are those of you who don’t believe that Valkyrie will take you to the Corpse hall when you die an honorable death (holding a weapon). But nobody is forcing you to believe one way or the other. Since few men die in battle (by percentage), the valkyrie business must be slow these days.

How many men call for a weapon to be placed in their hand at the moment of their passing these days?

That’s my point.

Maybe Ed, Camperfixer and LSP can address the issue, but I’m concerned that there will be too many girly men and wimps in the Christian heaven. It’s unlikely that I’ll see the pearly gates, but if I do?  (back to the Saga of Bjorn)

One of Odin’s Shield Maidens fishing in her off hours

In the Modern World, who is worthy of the Corpse Hall? 

In our world, punks, petty criminals, arsonists and black lives have become the wolves? Really? It’s a little pathetic, wouldn’t you say?

Maybe the modern world has bred the warrior out of people?

Parting Thought

The world of Naval Mine Warfare, and a British film provide a historical context. A B-52 deploys Mk 64 stand-off mines. A Navy Mk VI Patrol Boat can also deliver mines.

The US Mk 65, first deployed in 1983, is a ‘new’ weapon. The Mk 65 is aircraft-laid bottom mines for use against shallow submarines and surface targets. Mk 65 is a 2000-pound weapon, employing a new concept, thin-walled, mine-type case, as opposed to the thick-walled bomb-type case of the Mk 64 and older variations that were re-purposed iron bombs.

Mk 65

To be fair to the Mk 65 naval mine, there have been upgrades.

The Mk 65 includes a special arming device, a nose fairing, and a tail section adaptable to parachute option. All mines have the capability of making arming-delay, sterilization, self-destruct, and other operational settings.

Good Enough?

What about bringing back a newer 2020’s version of an old favorite, the Mk 60 Captor (Encapsulated Torpedo) Mine? It was the US Navy’s only deep water anti-submarine naval mine. The mine can be placed by either aircraft, submarine or surface vessel. The torpedo, once placed, could last anywhere from weeks to years underwater.

Context

The original production contract of the CAPTOR mine was awarded to Goodyear Aerospace in 1972, and entered service in 1979.  It was hoped to reduce minefield costs and used in the creation of a barrier of the “Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom gap to interrupt Soviet submarines in the event that deterrence failed.” The mine used Reliable Acoustic Path (RAP) sound propagation to passively identify and track the difference between hostile submarine signatures, surface vessels and friendly submarines. Once identified, the torpedo leaves its casing to destroy its target.

The Chinese (PLAN) Fleet

Laying CAPTOR mines in the shallower and deeper portions of the South China Sea could create problems for PLAN (Communist Chinese) Navy’s submarines and surface fleet. The old Mk 46 torpedoes have been replaced by the The Mk 50 ADCAP or Mk 54 (less expensive) U.S. Navy advanced lightweight torpedos for use against fast, submarines. Either would be very effective if also used as the active component of a naval mine.

It’s time to think about the best ways of sinking the People’s Republic of China’s Army’s Navy’s ships.