From the Mailbag
Q – (a) LL, do you think that Jeffrey Epstein was a spy for the state of Israel? (b) Do you think that he committed suicide?
A – (a) Yes, I think that it is probable that he spied on behalf of Israel as an access agent. Epstein’s Island and his estate in New Mexico had surveillance cameras in EVERY ROOM. There was only one reason for that – blackmail/extortion. There is no evidence that he extorted money – so what was he after? There is significant circumstantial evidence that this is the case. (b) No, I think that he was murdered while in custody. There is significant circumstantial evidence that the guards turned off surveillance cameras and took a break for a four-hour (or so) period during which person or persons killed him and made it look like a suicide. These are only my personal opinions. I don’t blog about it because it’s like arguing that the Sun will rise in the morning – it’s obvious to me.
Q – LL, do you think that Ghislaine Maxwell was a spy for the state of Israel?
A– If Epstein was an access agent, so was she. Her father, Robert Maxwell (1923–1991), was a Czechoslovak-born British media tycoon, politician, and publishing proprietor. He was a Member of the British Parliament who died under mysterious circumstances. His body was found in the Atlantic Ocean after falling from his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine. Following his death, it was revealed that he had stolen roughly £460 million from his companies’ pension funds. Ooops. The best information is that the Israeli government ran cover for him. He was buried in Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives with a high-profile funeral attended by Israeli leaders, including every living director of Mossad.
Are you going to be buried in Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives when you die? Why not? If not, it’s because you haven’t been much use to the Jewish State.
At the risk of sounding like a cynic, every intelligence service in the world that can call itself that recruits agents/informers and runs ops. I’m neither shocked nor surprised. The Israelis, Russians, Chinese, British, and Americans have been particularly aggressive over the past eighty or so years to different degrees and at different times.
Q – Is Canada a socialist state?
A – Does a Moose crap in the woods? More here. It feeds on Alberta like a parasite. If Alberta scrapes away the parasite, Canada will eventually fold. What will the emergent state look like? Will they look to Communist China for relief?
Bullet Points:
** Hospice in California. It’s a great business. It’s the Golden State! Then there’s the bridge to nowhere (mountain lion feeder).
** Do you do it for free?
** Tangled deployed canopies – ride them down – if they stay deployed, no reason to cut away.
** This is Outrageous! How are POC and trannies and women supposed to recycle in Connecticut now? Racism and Misogyny! How DARE they pass a law infringing on the sacred right to turn in used aluminum cans without an identification! The Democrats are so dependent on fraud to win elections. Add to the list things you need an ID for, but not voting, no, protecting election integrity is an atrocity in their eyes.
In Connecticut, people have been redeeming aluminium cans without paying income tax… Conn wants to squeeze every nickel out of its citizens. How dare they not pay taxes on recycled trash! Government at its finest.
** If a Chinook is hit by an RPG, what happens?
** Who feels bad for New York? The money is leaving the parasitic state behind, and they’re stuck buying votes without the means to do so effectively.
** Can women serve in Delta Force? No. Can they serve in the SEAL Teams? No. Can they serve in the British Household Cavalry? Sure.
** (h/t Claudio) The Russian cyber-attacks on Ukraine were known as Whisper Gate and were carried out by the Russian GRU military intelligence organization. The GRU, in one form or another, has been around for 300 years. Espionage and dirty tricks are long-standing Russian traditions. The GRU Cyber War offensive on the eve of the Ukraine invasion was directed against NATO supporters of Ukraine, including the United States. This triggered an aggressive and ongoing American response. This appears to have encouraged the GRU to try harder, and the Cyber War goes on.
** Should you conceal carry? Everyone has a different opinion of the value of CCW. Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6?
** (h/t Claudio) This strategypage article on propaganda is well done and remarkably comprehensive. Propaganda is universal. You need to keep your BS filter well-maintained. And to throw you off, sometimes they’ll tell the truth.
** VDH discusses Iran and the Houthis under creepy, pedo Joe Biden. I don’t know that it was much different under Obama, who had a thing for the Shiites and cut the ayatollah as much slack as humanly possible. Of course, it’s all blown up now.
The Hungry Ghosts are Coming Soon
Yes, the follow-up to Broken Toys will be here in April for your reading pleasure. If you haven’t read Broken Toys, you should consider doing that before reading the sequel.
This is the blurb:
The Hungry Ghosts is the second book in the Broken Toys Series, and it picks up shortly after the point where the Broken Toys left off. It will be available in paperback and digital formats.
An extrasolar spacecraft, which called itself Navigator, devoid of organic life, crashed in the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan, specifically in the area now known as the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region, on November 4, 1932. It had been pursued by an enemy craft intent on its capture. Though it had the capacity to defend itself effectively, the confrontation occurred within Earth’s atmosphere, and employing defensive weapons would have, for all intents and purposes, destroyed all life on the planet. It chose to eject the weapons system separately, then disintegrate itself, and waited in that place on the Roof of the World for its resurrection. And along came Frank Brandt.
The Hungry Ghosts is a Mainland Chinese criminal organization that traffics fentanyl through Mexican drug cartels that ends up in the United States and elsewhere. Though they started out as partners with the Chinese Communist Party, they’ve stretched beyond Chinese control, and it has created a problem in the Workers’ Paradise.
Vice President Laurel Vega-Mendoza has been elected to the US Presidency, and she is advised by Frank Brandt, who is no longer wholly human. He’s also been hard at work designing a few advanced weapons with his new capacity.
Claire Hoffman, a disabled veteran, is no longer disabled, and her mother wouldn’t recognize her with the new host living within her. She has changed her name and works as a US Senate Investigator focused on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.
As the newly minted president directs her most potent weapons toward eliminating Hungry Ghosts, the plot takes unpredictable twists.
The problem that many have with the arrival of an interstellar species is that it’s not wholly predictable because it’s not the least bit human. Can broken people be counted on to save things? They are usually willing to risk everything because they have nothing to lose…
What is the significance of the graphic above? Oh, you won’t know that until you are well into The Hungry Ghosts…
Identify the Aircraft (US Air Mail)
1
2
3
End
1 is Curtiss JN “Jenny”
2 looks to be Curtiss R-4L
3 is Airco DH.4
Good. #2 is a Standard JR-1B, as ML Tomas points out below. I thought that it might be a tougher ID. It’s not as well known as the Jenny and the DH-4
1 – Curtiss JN-4
2 – Standard JR-1B
3 – De Havilland DH-4
Excellent
California – The Dumb F*****Y has no limits. Ditto NYC & NY State. Why sane people don’t get out is beyond my understanding. The flight of wealth is being pushed seemingly on purpose by the reigning governing class. How else can you explain these decisions? And Why? Both states likely bankrupt in 10 -15 years.
How much revenue can Connecticut generate from can recycling?
Democrat governance is Evil – Stupid and Evil
Government gets greedy. They want to shove their snout into every nook and cranny in the hopes of revenue. IF the governed consent, I guess they can. Ask the Russians and the Cubans. They seem to do the same as CONNs do.
.
At present, it appears that the California governor’s race will be a runoff between two Republicans – Hilton (former Fox person) and Bianchi (RivCo Sheriff). The voters are tired of the taxes and intrusions.
X2 to you both.
Maybe a stupid question, but worth inquiring: When did government start to become a ‘self perpetuating revenue generator’ instead of working under the Constitution as prescribed? I go back to the Davey Crockett ‘It’s not yours to give’ scenario, and as humans, once government steps onto that greedy path there is no turning back, it just grows from that point forward.
Woodrow Wilson’s administration saw a huge expansion, but even before that, Lincoln had to finance the War of Northern Aggression/War Between the States/Civil War. Roosevelt’s New Deal and funding the Second World War put the nail in the coffin.
Figured you’d have some insight, something I never paid much attention to until more recently once realizing things weren’t adding up (not so much naive, just didn’t care, until I had to care.)
Why doesn’t she just set up a GoFundMe?
Then the rich can stay in Palm Beach and still support the socialist state.
Less trouble than moving again.
Would anyone contribute one thin dime to the New York GoFundMe? Maybe Robert DiNero could apply his vast fortune to NYC’s financial woes?
Same result.
I’s appreciate if someone with more economic sense/background/ability/acumen could answer a simple question:
why RMD? a (hard)working Joe, who knows he isn’t going to be covered by pension (or anything similar) is (government) allowed to put aside a (very) limited amount of his earnings. At age 73±, he must begin withdrawing a certain amount to pay taxes on the amount he withdraws. He also must use this money, plus SS to live on as neither he, nor his spouse are able to work.
He has put this money aside (in stocks, properties, precious metals, etc.) to stave off what he recognized early on as the weakening of the dollar in the coming years – which is the major problem. Essentially this is my question: shouldn’t he be able to subtract a proportion of the amount he submits (Yes! I use that word purposely) to the government based on the fact that in 1970 it would have cost him (on average) ~$36.50 to purchase an ounce whereas today it would cost him $4385± to purchase that same troy ounce?
IMHO, the government is strictly/only responsible for inflation by printing more paper dollars than it can back with actual valuables.
“Should he” so you’re asking the blogosphere to apply rationality and compassion. We’re not bad at that. The government, on the other hand, wants its share of those capital gains no matter how stove up the people in question happen to be, or what they gave up to save for those GOLDEN YEARS (cue David Bowie). Finding the right and more importantly the just blend of taxes is a challenge, particularly in a federated system where each subcomponent of government wants its squeeze. As with Connecticut, where they want to tax me on a trash bag filled with aluminium cans. I’d throw them away before I gave the government a penny. It’s like the move in NYC where they want to tax your “Gross Worth” (pun intended, Boron). So if I have a house worth $2 million that I’ve owned for 40 years, they want me to sell it so they can take $1 million. Then I guess I pay capital gains tax on the rest.
One corollary? – hard to find amongst the rest of the junk – (supporting facts):
my father was not “wealthy” in the slightest when he arrived here at the beginning of ’29, He worked his way up until he was in the middle of the middle class when he passed in ’75; out of 3 brothers and one sister, he was the sole supporter of his parents ’til they passed (@ 98&99).
my mother’s eldest brother brought 2/3 of his brothers and sisters to the U.S. (plus his mother – his father died on the way, the remainder of the family stayed for their own reasons) out of the Ukraine; my dad became the supporter of his mother-in-law along with the youngest brother on that side.
I was brought up understanding that concept: It is the children’s responsibility to support their parents in their declining years: I’m perfectly fine with that.
Question: why is it now my responsibility to care for (support) people (those who can work, but just don’t want to or “are unable to find jobs”) of whom I have no knowledge and have no knowledge of me: will these people care for me in my declining years.
I don’t even want to discuss the Social Security scam that’s been foisted on us.
Boron, shame on you. Don’t you want to provide a safety net for those less fortunate? Don’t you want to take one for the team? Aren’t you a team player? What about the vast numbers of people in the inner city? What about descendants of slaves? They’re all your dependents now. What about all of the DEI college majors who are now out of work?
.
They’ll cover you in your dotage – you have SSI and MediScam Part A don’t you? You have to discuss it. It’s your Ponzi money returning in the form of a princely payment.
.
As I have mentioned on the blog before, I don’t want MediCare, but it was forced on me at the point of a bayonet. “You MUST APPLY” They took payments from me for years for it and then they forced the insurance on me even though I had other insurance coverage. So now I have Parts A & B. That I also pay for. Oh joy.
Not only that LL, but every Tom, Dick, and Harry Medicare ‘expert’ grifting a stupidly complex government requirement sends you mailings every week offering to assist you in navigating the Medicare nebula ‘to maximize your benefits’ THAT YOU PAID FOR by way of confiscation, the get to pay the ‘lowlow’ monthly premiums (plural).
X2 – Why does everyone need to have a Medicare Consultant to explain the complicated and contradictory rules?
Hungry Ghosts; read the prequel on Mrs W’s kindle and left a review. Will re-read it, and be purchasing this sequel eventually. Great description today. The roof of the world question; Are there locations like the skin walker ranch in Utah that geologically contribute “evidence” that supports the various cases of phenomena?
I believe there are places in our world where the veil between the two worlds – earthly and spiritual – are ‘more thin’, allowing “anomalies to occur.
New characters are introduced, and questions about the aliens are answered, only raising more questions. I’m a HUGE skeptic when it comes to the TV evidence. In many cases (Epstein, for example), government probes are constrained, and someone powerful gets to the investigator to skew the results. The Epstein tapes (videos) designed to blackmail are still out there, and just their existence serves the purpose. I have no idea where they are, but they clearly exist. The Skinwalker Ranch ‘evidence’ is altogether different.
Just finished The Duelist series (reviews left on Amazon), and I noticed that while Hud Hudson is one tough and resourceful fellow, he’s lucky, too, like with Bill the Mule.
Any chance he’s an ancestor of Lucky Brandt?
Success in life often requires a little luck. Often, people make their own luck, but there are elements of chance in the stories of Frank (Lucky) Brandt and Henry Hudson. If Bill the Mule hadn’t been around, Hudson’s Scouts would have ended up as bones bleaching on the prairie with nobody to tell the tale but the Comanche and the listening sky. Of course, there is always the prophecy and the conspiracy to explore in Book 4, Vengeance and Retribution.
First time I saw a pic of Ghislaine Maxwell, I said to myself, not even with Bill Clinton’s……well…..you know……”equipment” shall we say? Not the least bit attractive, in my opinion, but then again, I’m not horn dog Bill Clinton, with all the baggage living his life requires, not the least of which is being married to Hilary, so I have that going for me.
Bill Clinton has always been one who is willing to “deploy the courting tackle” at the drop of a hat. Hillary (the more cunning and ambitious of the pair) has spent her life running around and covering for that. Everybody who meets Bill instinctively likes him. Hillary is the opposite. She always needed a stalking horse like Bill to get anywhere in life. And then Trump snatched the Presidency from her clutches (thank you, God). That always tickles me.
Isn’t he a Rhodes Scholar? Read somewhere he has/had a photographic memory, could recite a speech without notes. Not stupid. Yet when those two got together it was akin to ‘white trash with money’ (attributed to Rosanne Barr at some point moons ago) coupled to a desire for power (her)…she used his charisma, and he used her.
He is. Bubba is a bright guy. He’d have done well at anything he tried, mainly because he’s personable. Now in his dotage, I think that things are hard for him if his face is any indication. But he had a good run. Other than the pure evil part of it, Hillary might not have been a bad president. She has the brains, the knowledge and the will to do things – but whereas Trump does good with those skillsets, she’d do evil.
Bill’s run may be nearing an end. He had a case of the shakes in his recent deposition, had a hard time controlling a glass of water in fact. He also had a hard time controlling his leers while looking at photographs of young un’s during the deposition, but that’s another issue, an issue he’s had a lot longer than the shakes for that matter.
Pres. Trump had no good words about Robert Muller at his passing. I wonder what he’ll say when Bubba shuffles off his mortal coil?
Thought I read somewhere that England eventually got fed up with Bubba’s odious doings while in college, and let him go back to the States with a Do Not Bother To Return message.
Epstein & Maxwell: Simple for me, don’t really need to know the machinations or minutia….these two were operatives tapped to continue a Hoover-Style info gathering on those they deemed dangerous to the Deep State. In fact, we don’t really know that Epstein is dead (or that Biden is alive for that matter), and there is a reason for Maxwell to still be alive, yet she is (best we know, that is). The fact these two names are still in the news being ‘discussed’ is telling.
–
PDJT is dismantling these elite’s ill-gotten protected sandbox, and the Lex Luther’s of the world will stop at nothing to marginalize or eliminate him…and he knows it, making him even more courageous. Oil per barrel price at [pick any number above $74/barrel] is a fungible commodity manipulation by the same scummy group who will bury the castle in rubble before letting anything happen to their fiefdom.
–
The people of NYC elect a Marxist Muslim Manchurian – with Epstein ties no less – years after Muslim nuts attacked us…doesn’t scan for normal thinking people out here in the hinterland…but…there it is. I say let them flail and fail…miserably. Call it tough love or consequences…but damnit…WTP should not bail out these blue states and cities, and their businesses, that are demanding help. Not just ‘No’, but ‘Hell No!’, sucks to be them. But not my problem…deal with your own monkeys let loose by those you morons put into office.
– That’s my Monday morning review from a well worn cheap seat in the nosebleed section that the ‘tossed bread by the merciful elite’ never reaches, and I’m good with that…just want them all to leave me the hay alone. (Must be tax (legalized theft) season) Excellent blog fodder this morning LL, as usual.
It is not in our shared Karma for the government to leave any of us alone. Maybe surprisingly to most readers, I don’t mind the taxes that I pay. I think that they’re fair enough. Of course, I live in Arizona these days. I would rather pay LESS in taxes, but on the whole, we all need to contribute. Now comes the next question. Is it fair that over 50% of Americans pay NO income tax? Maybe the tariffs will answer that question and will end up paying down the national debt.
.
One calculus with the Iran war is that Iranian oil will end up paying for the war and a chunk of the US National Debt.
Me neither (paying something in taxes), but in a simple 10% card sort of way, not this convoluted nebula. (Corporate tax structures should be different than personal, not the same entities at work, even though corporations do not pay taxes directly). But when this stuff takes on a life of its own at the hands of officials voting themselves all manner of things on taxpayers backs – selling these ‘initiatives – as ‘health and safety for all’ baloney, then it is a mile too far. Why does my garage build permit include ‘funding’ for social programs I will never use that target the lowest 10%…or permits exist at all? Property taxes is nothing but ‘renting from government’…needs to go. Montana has no state sales tax. Yep, feels like freedom.
–
Agreed on the last point, PDJT and Team have a plan. Short-term pain is fine with me to get this regime over with and the country back to her people while clearing the terrorism slate from bad actors who can’t seem to aspire beyond their ingrained 7th century mentality. Diesel fuel went up again, now $2 more than three weeks ago, but not Trump’s fault as the propagandanista’s likes to portray. I can deal with that for another couple of weeks, worth the means to an end.
The price of Diesel hurts right now. I parked the F-350 with about 6 gallons left in the tank last week. Unless there is dire need, it will sit with less than an 1/8th tank of fuel until fuel price drops $2 a gallon.
I think it will drop soon, but I don’t know how long before it gets back to $2.00.
I misread that thinking he said $2 a gallon instead of dropping $2 a gallon.
Be glad you escaped Colofornia. This year’s state deficit is $1.5 billion and climbing. Now Emperor Polis is seeking additional funding for the prison system. Things are so bad within the system that even he can’t ignore the problem. Eight years ago, when he took office promising to “fundamentally change Colorado” (echoed the Lightbringer) the state’s budget was balanced. That is required by the State Constitution.
Funny how Colorado state law requires a balanced budget yet the Democrats can ignore it without penalty while the Republicans do nothing about it (well, they do talk about it).
IDA-
1-Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny.”
2-Standard JR-1B biplane used by the Post Office Department.
3-De Havilland DH-4, a British-designed biplane used during World War I.
-STA LETHAL
Exactly – and you be careful out there in Indian country, HogsbreathSS.
Geez LL…’Indigenous People’! …don’t want to upset the Karen’s now.
(The Madison covers this hilariously while being serious. Loved it — [micro spoiler alert] — when the ‘Indigenous’ rancher says to the same granddaughter, “You want some ‘Indian’ tacos?” Sheridan is definitely nailing it with this one…but still think he’s a mutant.
HogsbreathSS is “over there,” or he’ll be there shortly. No native Americans present.
Love the old biplanes. My maternal grandfather was flight instructor in France during WWI, which is about all I know about his time there. No evidence that he ever saw combat. All his son (my uncle) ever remarked was that his dad “Flew Spads”. My grandfather was discharged from the Army Air Service at Camp Dix February 23, 1919. I was discharged from Ft. Dix February 22, 1977. I still have his “Good Luck” polished metal shaving mirror in its leather sleeve.
If I had lived then, I’d have liked to be a barnstormer. Not a bad way to spend summers.
My father had 11 siblings. The family was poor. Each year they received $.25 allowance at the Moffat County Fair. That was their annual allowance. Circa 1926 a barnstormer was at the fair and my five year old father paid $.25 to sit between his feet as he flew other passengers. In 1966 he, with my help, bought a Piper J-4 that we both used our Private rating. He later upgraded to a C-182.
It’s addictive. I learned on a Beechcraft T-34C Turbo-Mentor. They just replaced the T-34B Mentor. Then transition to rotor for the mission I was being trained for, Bell TH-57A Sea Ranger. Then I stole a helicopter the Russians didn’t want stolen. They didn’t want to waste a properly trained pilot if the infil went south.
That seems a tad sporting.
Sporting Indeed – Wold like to hear more about that someday?
I love Piper Cubs. Only had a couple of flights in them, but they’re wonderful little airplanes.
The J-4 was side by side seating. Ours had 85 hp. Prop start. The runway was 6,800′ ASL.
Looking forward to “The Hungry Ghost”. Some spring reading.
*
Parachute jump. Even with all that messing around trying to control the situation the feet stayed together. Well done. That is mucho harder to do under stress than folks may realize.
*
I knew the DH-4 today. The Jenny seemed to obvious so I kept thinking it had to be something else. The JR-1B I had no idea.
*
Aluminum can tax. I could understand if they put a weight minimum of say over a 1,000 pounds to tax (to capture dump truck loads of metal) but grandpa taking in his pound of beverage cans is beyond stupid.
I made $57 one summer collecting cake bottles at 3 cents a piece in 1970. It was also the first time I had a gun pulled on me. A huge bag of cans is worth nothing.
Woo hoo! Looking forward to the new book!!!
As far as no female Delta operators go, I believe that is accurate, however that does not mean there are no female SF operators. The two times I went to Trident Spectre (2012, 2013), I met females in the rooms that the operator teams were using for technical training. They were just as hard core as the guys, but obviously filled a different role in the team. Some of the guys I met were introduced as MARSOC, and some were from a team in Coronado, and a couple of Rangers. I never knew where the women fit in, or where they were from. Since the intent of Trident Spectre is to get new hardware and systems into the hands of operators for testing and evaluation, it was less important for us to know the specific details of an operator’s affiliation. There was always a defined operational concept and each member of each team had a specific role. We trained the ones using our tech and they used it in the exercise. They held a hot wash after the exercise to which I was never invited, being a Godless contractor. Any information on how our tech worked during the exercise was limited to a statement such as: worked/didn’t work/didn’t use it. Another option was broken during use.
If it can be broken, they will break it.
.
There are four female Special Forces (Green Berets), some of the Special Operations Forces in the Tiers allow female members. Women usually serve in support, intelligence, and “enabler” roles within 1st SFOD-D, NAVSPECWARDEVGRU and USAF 24th Special Tactics Squadron.
DH4: Granddad’s plane in Canadian RFC. Until he was shot down by a Circus member over France in 1918 (he survived – but finished the war in a hospital in England)