Caption: It’s nice to dip my tired dogs into the Gulf of America.
From the White House (Your Sermonette)
2,000 California National Guard soldiers will be deployed against the mob since California Law Enforcement won’t support ICE in suppressing them. I’m sure that President Trump will order another 2,000 to be called up if they can’t do it. Things will get interesting.
The Sermonette is simply this: The democrat lawless mob, by any name – Antifa, BLM, Occupy, Hamas, Media Matters – will be met with appropriate force.
Bullet Points:
** Four Wheel Drive recovery with EdB.
** Yes, hotels are racist. Explored here further.
** Parasailing. Would you panic?
** Ron DeSantis on property taxes. The question of how we tax, who we tax, and what we tax has a significant impact on our perception of freedom.
** You can’t be a cowboy without the correct equipment. I think we all know that the hat (a proper hat) is required. So are boots – working boots, not spit-shined roach killers that cost $2000 a pair. It would also be helpful to own a cow, a horse (with tack), and a rope. What else?
** John Wick – behind the scenes?
** When slickers move to the mountains, they meet their neighbors. It’s funny that people in other parts of Northern Arizona believe that the folks in my neck of the woods are “people who live in compounds” and are considered to be terrifying.
**It’s fortunate for me that I don’t have enough friends for an intervention.
** Carrola’s thoughts on who pays – I agree with his take on things.
Drone Wars
The Pentagon feels that the public will support its use of directed energy (LASER), EMP-style bursts, and kinetic (bullets) weapons to defend military bases against drone incursions targeted at military installations. It makes me want to saddle up to the bar and boldly announce, “I’ll have what he’s drinking.”
The public will support the concept of defending the base until the EMPs black out half the state and take out all general aviation and commercial aviation within twenty miles and send them plummeting to the earth — and those bullets take out a school or a hospital five miles distant.
As a former C-level executive with a drone/UAV company that had to deal with the FAA (and their contractors at Bowhead), I can assure you that civilian authorities don’t view things the same way as the military does when it comes to US territory. You can do what you want in Africa, Gaza, Syria, or Iran, but not at home. Except that’s the plan. Those are the rules of engagement that DOD is discussing in light of the Ukrainian attack on the Russian Strategic Bomber Fleet (Voenno-vozdushnye sily Rossii, or VVS)
In March 2025, over 100 participants from more than two dozen federal agencies participated in a tabletop exercise that explored aspects of counter-drone operations. This was the sixth event in a series of tabletop exercises exploring various aspects of counter-drone operations, capabilities, authorities, and threats. The most recent event was designed to explore a key research question in the homeland: how can the Joint Force and Interagency support Northern Command’s synchronization of counter-drone operations to defend military bases within the USA?
The Joint Counter-Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office (JCO) partnered with RAND in designing hypothetical but realistic drone incursion scenarios that aimed to fulfill stakeholders’ interests without priming them to think and respond in a certain way. The scenarios drew insights from recent drone incursions at U.S. military installations. Two different sites, Fort Bliss in Texas and Joint Base Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, informed the tabletop exercise. This allowed the exercise team to vary conditions that, when considered in combination, approximated the complexity of drone incursions at military bases. These included various drones flying at different bearings, altitudes, and ranges from military bases; multiple modes of transportation, from which participants could adjudicate the merits—and limits—of applying counterpositioning, navigation, and timing capabilities; and, a litany of federal, state, and local authorities, in addition to military units.
The JCO/RAND team explored the implications of these “treatments” in terms of three questions. First, what triggers Northern Command’s synchronization of counter-drone operations at military bases? Second, how can the Joint Force and Interagency, synchronized by Northern Command, maximize data-sharing to enhance situational awareness of drone incursions at military bases? Third, what conditions encourage the use of counterpositioning, navigation, and timing capabilities, as well as other exquisite technologies, to mitigate the effects of drone incursions at military bases? Participants addressed these questions over multiple phases of the two scenarios, and experts from the JCO and RAND facilitated their analyses. The tabletop exercise resulted in three key findings. Together, these outcomes could allow Northern Command to adopt a proactive approach to defend military bases against drone incursions.
Aside from the inherent right to self-defense, the tabletop exercise identified three instances where Northern Command could exercise a leadership role in synchronizing homeland defense against drone incursions at military bases. These include drone incursions that overwhelm the organic defensive capabilities of the services, are simultaneously conducted at different military bases, especially those performing essential missions, and undermine public trust in the military and government, which is a political consideration informed by elected officials’ understanding of their constituencies.
The exercise also endorsed Northern Command’s development of “fly-away” kits to enhance homeland defense against drone incursions at military bases, assuming specific triggers are met. Fly-away kits are “rapidly deployable, prepackaged counter-drone technology, along with personnel trained to employ that technology, that can be dispatched via commercial aircraft to get to the installation in need.” Crucially, fly-away kits are not a silver bullet against drone incursions at military bases. Instead, they are additive to existing capabilities and designed to enhance layered defense, thus reflecting hard-fought lessons from counter-drone operations conducted abroad.
A layered defense approach calibrates nonlethal and lethal effects against drones based on their bearing, altitude, and range from military bases, and is applicable mainly in the homeland. The first layer maximizes the distance between drones and military bases and consists of nonlethal capabilities, such as electronic warfare. The second layer incorporates the use of microwave weapons as well as high-energy lasers to achieve a “soft kill” of drones, given their updated bearing, lower altitude, and shorter range from installations. The final layer integrates direct-fire weapons, such as machine guns and small missiles, to achieve a “hard kill” of drones. Though political and military leaders often shudder at the possibility of using lethal capabilities to interdict drone incursions in the homeland, especially given the potential for collateral damage, research shows (PDF) that Americans support doing so, especially at military bases.
Second, the tabletop exercise emphasized the need for a framework to integrate, enable, and synchronize state, local, tribal, and territorial authorities into counter-drone operations at or near military bases. Typically, these authorities are the first to identify drone incursions and receive reports of these incidents from concerned citizens. These authorities also respond first to unlawful drone operations, most of which take place outside of military bases. Lastly, these authorities are often necessary for determining the point of origin and the location of drones after an incursion. Cooperation with the National Guard provides a mechanism for Northern Command to cultivate better situational awareness, capability development, data sharing, and interoperability across federal, state, and local law enforcement for counter-drone operations in the homeland.
Finally, the tabletop exercise also clarified conditions that would justify the Federal Aviation Administration’s support for the use of counterpositioning, navigation, and timing capabilities to jam unlawful drones at or near military bases.
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The value of land near military bases and zoning policies has allowed the construction of civilian homes, businesses, factories, and infrastructure nearly to the fences of most US military bases. In most cases, there is no buffer zone. There is no physical reaction space. Turning back an attack (or perceived attack) will destroy civilian lives and property. Nobody at the Pentagon wants to face the reality that being stupid about not keeping reaction and defensive zones around military bases is going to create some serious problems.
Chinese Malaise
(h/t Claudio) (Strategypage) China is undergoing an unprecedented series of economic, demographic, and medical disasters. In the last three years, there’s been a 20 percent drop in American imports from China. The Chinese economy is producing less because the population is declining, and the national health system is trying to cope with continued COVID-19 deaths, some of which are from a botched COVID-19 vaccine that is not working and often killing people. The government denies this and threatens any Chinese reporters or health officials who speak out on what is happening.
The bird flu returned, and over the last year, it has devastated commercial poultry producers and has spread to humans, often with fatal results. One of the more visible aspects of this was the number of prominent Chinese who were visibly sick at a recent leadership conference. Some of the ill leaders sought to give their speeches anyway, making it very clear that they were not well.
China is where COVID came from, and while the effects of the disease have diminished worldwide, COVID is still killing people in China. Those it doesn’t killed are disabled for short periods, leaving a labor shortage. A significant casualty of all this is the economy, which is slowing down. This is evident in the decline of Chinese exports.
Chinese doctors are not getting much help from their government, which is trying to conceal the extent of the health crisis and forcibly suppress health-related protests in China. One key problem is that no one knows the origin of this new bird flu. It has spread to humans with deadly effects, and there is no news on a vaccine or if such a cure is in production or even possible.
Chinese vaccine research and production are in crisis because the latest COVID-19 vaccine turned out to be deadly to many of those who received it. So, there is no rush to get a Bird Flu vaccine out that will debilitate or kill rather than protect. Meanwhile, the new bird flu continues to spread. People returning from visiting China report a significantly higher number of funerals, a development that satellite photos can confirm.
The Iron Beam
After the Israeli military last week disclosed it had been using a laser interception system to shoot down Hezbollah drones amid the fighting in Lebanon last year, the Rafael defense firm unveiled on Wednesday several new versions of its Iron Beam and other laser systems.
Rafael Advanced Defense Systems announced that it will showcase its family of “high-energy laser weapon systems” at the Paris Air Show, scheduled to take place later this month.
The systems included the Iron Beam 450, an upgraded version of the in-development Iron Beam, which is set to be delivered to the Israel Defense Forces by the end of 2025.
Rafael said the Iron Beam 450 is “widely considered the most advanced high-energy laser air defense system in the world,” and is capable of shooting down drones, rockets, and other aerial threats up to distances of 10 kilometers (6 miles).”
Identify the Ship and Class
1
2
It was launched with a different hull number and classification…
3
While we’re renaming ships christened in the monikers of corrupt politicians, here’s one for the list.
Note: The John Lewis Class replenishment ships appear to share a common theme, as many are named after notorious individuals. Harvey Milk – a corrupt San Francisco politician, notorious scoundrel, and a homosexual child molester- is about to be renamed, but you could rename them all.
4
5
End
Identify the Ship and Class:
1. Spruance-class (colloquially known as Sprucans) destroyer USS Cushing
2. Farragut-class (originally DLG-9, later DDG-40) USS Coontz
3. San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock USS John P. Murtha
4. Mitscher-class destroyer USS John S. McCain
5. Leahy-class cruiser USS England. At present, the US navy is not fulfilling Admiral King’s promise that “There’ll always be an England in the United States Navy.”
Comprehensive!
The democrat lawless mob, by any name – Antifa, BLM, Occupy, Hamas, Media Matters – will be met with appropriate force.
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And it won’t have to be Proud Boys or OathKeepers or some other militia.
I hope Patels FBI will follow the money.
“Appropriate Force” was applied as law enforcement defended themselves 10/29/2020 in Vancouver WA. Kevin Peterson Jr, a soros child, being parented by surrogates, Inslee and Brown, was gunned down and ” killed” according to the magic wiki wand. Following the $, WTP paid our 1.25m in a lawsuit settlement for our law enforcement defending themselves after Lil Kevi drew on them. It’s true, proud boys and Oath keepers infiltrated by alphabet agencies have behaved in noble fashion to date. Hopefully uniforms will get the job done so that private militia won’t have to prevent another 1-2 billion in theft and damages as in the Floyd riots. Oh… I forgot, ” mostly peaceful protests .”
Sermonette; just a little data to contemplate on. ” Incidentally”, the mostly peaceful protests, reactive to LEO’s defending themselves, or conduct in the line if duty, numbered 32 in 2020. Then 12 in 2021. 6 in 2022. Only 4 in 2023, according to Wikipedia. Are governors guilty of treason for aiding and abetting criminal activity? Especially attacks on federal alphabet agencies just doing their job and preventing the ” plan” to make our citizenship of no value, with ILLEGAL immigration?
The defense against drones is not conceptually different than defense against anything else. They can be shot down, radio jammed, EMP’ed, lit up by a laser, you name it. The problems are bigger because the ranges are shorter – especially including the distances to innocent bystanders. The behavior of a high powered laser make it hard to guarantee that a laser pulse goes exactly where you expected. A friend I worked with had worked with high powered lasers used for defense and said that they heat the air they’re going through enough for the laser to be redirected. Think of it like a star twinkling. At some point, a laser directed anywhere other than into the dirt is going to hit a satellite, especially as low earth orbit gets more crowded.
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Putting buffer zones around military bases to keep from annihilating the innocent civilians living there is going to dramatically increase the cost of the bases.
Lasers do cause “twinkle” as the air heats and distorts. The YAL-1 Air Borne Laser (ABL) test article used lower-energy lasers to map the disturbances before igniting the high-power laser. Better range, less distortion. However, the chemical lasers (COIL) were nasty to use and clean up after. That and other issues shut down the program. A former supervisor of mine was the PSO for the program.
Similar laser mapping of the atmosphere is done for telescopes, and said telescopes use deformable lenses, another spinoff of the ABL program.
I admire Ron DeSantis but I’m puzzled by his take on property taxes. I live in a high-tax state and my property taxes are pretty damned painful, but my town employs cops, firemen, teachers, and maintenance workers, among others, all of whom expect to be paid. They all require infrastructure such as police cars, fire trucks, and school buildings. They all provide services that benefit me directly or indirectly. So who should pay for all this and how, if not by property or income taxes? And how do we decide who pays what? And how much? I’ve heard of libertarian schemes where private fire companies, for example, protect the property of subscribers who pay them a fee. Seems kinda like a tax to me. I gather it’s been tried in the past and not worked very well. (Also I can envision a Sopranos-style scenario where Tony and Vinnie show up at my front door and say, “We’re from the Acme Fire Protection Service. Nice house you have here, it would be a shame if it caught fire some day . . .”)
So . . . to repeat my original question: if not property taxes, what?
All good points. Constitutionally, local city and county sales tax may work.
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” private enterprise ” services as you have stated can become corrupted.
I’m not fond of a value added tax. And I think that the State needs to provide for all the necessary services of government (10th Amendment mandate). The problem we have today is that the Federal Government sucks all the air out of the room as it prints money – some of it by “monetizing debt” – just printing with no backing. Sales and consumption taxes are the most fair since the poor and rich both contribute to the base. Some say that it unfairly taxes the poor by making them pay “something”. Flat taxes have been proposed. They work elsewhere. No incentive for having a mortgage or contributing to charity. A flat amount targeted at a combination of sales, income and other metrics.
it’s not the necessary vital services, it’s the paper-pusher “admin” secretaries and local politicians that eat up over 90% of the local/property taxes
Boron, agreed. Admin pork has increased exponentially in school districts.
it’s the many “necessary” public works projects which contracts always seem to wind with a politician’s relative; it’s the “necessary” support for for the indigent that seems to find its way into a town council’s law/ordinance/budget; it’s the “necessary” increase the number of secretaries (now called administrators) in the town hall from one in the past to fifteen currently in a town with a population increase of less than one percent; it’s the increase in the number of school personnel required to accomodate the required changes in education policies; usw
IMHO we’re being scammed, our pockets emptied, our children catechized by the godless …
shall I go on?
*** this is not, repeat not a rant
X2…when grifters realize they can do it “lawfully” by enacting said laws, WTP have lost freedom and have become slave to their grift. This is similar to a personal axiom, “Lawyers create the very laws they then use as billable hour generators” Save for a few professions, like the mafia, insurance companies, and politicians, no one else has this capability.
You left out mullahs…
In many if not most municipalities, police/fire/safety eats up 60% +/- of the budget. Education usually comes out of the state budget rather than the local pocketbook.
It’s just that retirees who have paid off their homes and become surrounded by increasing valued homes being built find their property taxes driving them out of their homes.
There needs to be a legislative mechanism to defend the RESIDENTIAL property of the elderly against unfair taxation. By unfair, I mean patently unaffordable. By that time in life you don’t have children using schools, etc.
Actually, the solution is dirt simple: Eliminate property taxes altogether, anything else is fudging the line in an attempt to continue collecting the tax (like “resort” taxation rules, which help but do not eliminate the original scumbaggery). As DeSantis stated, it’s pure theft after the sale and taking possession of personal property.
“The bird flu returned, and over the last year, it has devastated commercial poultry producers and has spread to humans, often with fatal results.”
The bird flu has made the jump from birds to human? The last I’d heard was one death here in the US, an older gentleman with health problems who was handling sick & dead birds as a job.
COVID 19 was a weaponized derivative of SARS which came from bat viruses. (gain of function research) As I understand it, the Chinese bird flu jumped species to humans and acted against the respiratory system the way SARS does.
China increased population by 72 million in the 2nd decade of this century. With over 1.4 billion total, would the PTB there mind trimming off a few million, of the marginal population? As stated, they have a birth rate concern. But unless a plague got out of hand, and the declining exports to the west is the Han/ leadership actually concerned?
Long term, I think they are. Part of the problem they have is the imbalance of genders. During the one-child policy, women aborted female babies and kept males, so it’s nowhere near 1:1. A male child is your retirement policy. The young wife of your son takes care of you in your dotage. The wife’s parents have to suck it up without anone to care for them. There are 33 million more men than women in China.
Riding tack. I grew up as a young lad on a small ranch in the California Gold Rush country. We pushed livestock around on horseback, but did not rope. The few times we branded, we did it in a stock squeeze. During my college days, I found summer employment as a ranch hand, but never considered my to be a cowboy. I have ridden a few times with a Winchester M94 in a leather scabbard. Right side, butt stock forward. Stock needs to be angled up just enough so that if your horse throws his head around to shoo off a fly, his neck doesn’t hit the stock.
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My maternal grandfather at one time ran cattle on leased ground on the slopes of Mt. Diablo. He was a city boy from Long Beach who married a gal from Texas. At some point they got to know a leather worker who lived in Walnut Creek for a time, and who later moved to Cottonwood. I have a dim memory of stopping by in Cottonwood with my mother so she could order a complete headstall and reins done in un-stained leather. I have ridden many miles with them as well, and still have them. And that leather worker? Luis Ortega.
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http://www.mastersoftraditionalarts.org/artists/255
Great stuff, doesn’t matter if one is a cowboy or not, as a profession…matters if ride and are good to your horse. Neighbor is the last of a dying breed, true cowboy…also has a moss rock business to supplement because the lunatics are working hard t destroy farming and ranching.
It’s kind of sad that he felt that way since the 110-year-old Indian had shown him some stuff before he died.
Parasailing – if they managed to find a big enough boat and ‘chute to get me airborne,
I might be terrified but detaching myself from the ‘chute would never enter my mind.
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Property tax – Concur, abomination. My wife and I “own” our house, but it’s a lie. We
just rent it from the town. If we don’t pay the rent, they evict us and rent it to someone
else. They also tell us what we can and can’t do on our land, just like renters. The only
difference with owning is that the landlord is an absentee, and we have to pay all the
maintenance and repairs. There are plenty of other, less egregious taxes they could use.
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It’s going to be painful and expensive, but we need to make our military bases back into
military bases, instead of “military-themed planned, gated communities, integrated with
civilian infrastructure”. They need to be able to defend themselves against all threats with
lethal force, and all of our service personnel should go armed at all times. It’s probably
going to require closing large numbers of them and building new ones in the wilderness
or rural areas. Not just drones either, by a long shot. Naval bases need to be far from commercial
shipping, and are not – a COSCO container ship full of antishipping missiles can drive
right up within a couple miles of Norfolk / Groton / King’s Bay / Bremerton / San Diego / Pearl.
Or for that matter, with a nuke onboard. It’s madness.
– Kle.
👍
“2,000 California National Guard soldiers will be deployed against the mob since California Law Enforcement won’t support ICE”
Is PDJT using the Insurrection Act? In most cases the President can’t call up a state National Guard without the Governor’s approval. Did Newsom go along with this?
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“** You can’t be a cowboy without the correct equipment”
Where are the hay hooks and wire stretcher?
Newson is trying to resist Pres. Trump.
NatGuard went into Little Rock over Orville Faubus’ protestations.
Good luck with that as Federal immigration law supersedes whatevertheheck Newsom believes he’s entitled when it comes to illegal so-called “sanctuary state” self-generated status defying Federal law.
Trump did not use the insurrection act, even though California (and R.I. and many other States)
are in open rebellion against the Federal government.
*
He used other precedents, as above.
*
IMO, Insurrection Act is appropriate and necessary, but Trump does not seem to want to go there.
– Kle.
Re the drone response, there will not be any ‘real’ response due to the delays, political infighting, and ‘fear of damage’ until well after the base and personnel are destroyed. You know that as well as I do. John Q Public could give a s**t less about the military, but whatever you do, don’t upset their cushy lives, much less cause ANY collateral damage… sigh…
Yep.
Years ago, I went to England Air Force Base in Louisiana to look at a helipad location we were bidding. It was surrounded with the community, and right past the entrance were houses, retail shops and a golf course. If it was attacked, there was no doubt the most casualties would have been civilian. The same was true for Keesler in Biloxi. The only buffer were civilians, and any attack would be a disaster. Those in the service would be responding to their families, friends and personal items, and any enemy would have a turkey shoot.
We’ve lost the warrior ethos, The “Warrior Ethos” refers to the values and beliefs that characterize warriors in primarily pagan societies, often emphasizing courage, honor, loyalty, and self-sacrifice. There is a focus on public virtue over private virtue, pride in achievements, and a willingness to defend one’s community. SEC Hedgeseth is trying to instill the concept of a warrior and war fighting culture in the military. Will he have us drinking mead from our enemy’s skulls? Doubtful. However the mindset that underpins that is critical. In past years the military tried to stamp out that mindset and replace it with DEI, unicorns and critical race theory. They called it toxic.
4WD Recovery
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCcWzLAcv4o
That’s a toe tapper!
+1
+2…goodun.
I wondered if it was going to be that one.
“Mighty neighborly”.
– Kle.
“The value of land near military bases and zoning policies has allowed the construction of civilian homes, businesses, factories, and infrastructure nearly to the fences of most US military bases.”
Interesting. I was doing some research on “Old West” military reservations – among them, Fort Sedgwick near current day Ovid, CO. The fort itself took up about ½ section while the military boundaries took up more than a township, extending a bit into today’s Nebraska (can’t embed a map). The 2nd Julesburg was relocated (after the first was destroyed) just outside the military district in order to allow the sale of alcohol, etc.
Fort Sanders – just south of Laramie – had similar boundaries – far exceeding the actual fort limits.
Every military installation should have a defensive zone around it. Few do. If it comes to kinetic combat, there will be a lot of collateral damage.
Parasailing – The point of training until emergency procedures are muscle memory is so even if you do panic, you do the safest thing at the lowest level of adrenaline-shaking motor control while the brain is offline, so you can survive until the OODA loop catches up… Otherwise, the brain is going to substitute something comfortable and familiar, even if it kills you.
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This fall, once it cools down, I look forward to enjoying the Gulf of America myself.
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“Enough friends for an intervention”? Is that like the critical mass necessary to show up after a friend’s teenaged boy rolls the truck into a mesquite thicket, talk the cop out of giving a ticket so it won’t go on his record before he starts boot camp, and haul truck and boy home while reading him the riot act about too fast for conditions and hydroplaning? We pulled that off fine, so I guess we have enough.
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We’ve also had enough to move couches between houses. Even if I will never live down making the boys a tagine and melon salad as thanks, and then looking around the table as they were swapping tales, and saying “Am I the only one here who hasn’t done an arms deal in a souk?” (I was.)
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Drone wars – It has been so long since foreign military action on American soil, that outside of the military and those immediately adjacent, people don’t consider it as even a *possibility.* This includes civilian bureaucrats. Even the last foreign-terrorist-blamed action on US soil that *was well publicized enough for them to remember* was 9/11, which is widely dismissed by far too many as a one-off that hasn’t repeated, and therefore will never repeat… and that’s not counting the pilots I work with, who view it as ancient history, because it happened before they were even born. That mindset is as bad a danger as the threat incoming.
Who hasn’t done an arms deal in a souk?
You’re nobody until you’ve operated on hostile turf in the Middle East.
I’ll likely finish out my Earthly term as a “nobody” then…
Gulf [of America]: properly named as in 1 below:
1) A large area of a sea or ocean partially enclosed by land, especially a long landlocked portion of sea opening through a strait.
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The other definitions offer great insight:
2) A deep, wide chasm; an abyss.
Where the Democrats, America haters, and the Left are working overtime to send us…at our expense.
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3) A wide gap, as in understanding.
The distance between those of us who are aware and those who aren’t, who tend to drive us aware to frustration, partly due to morality and principles on our side vs. ….none on theirs. Some also posit that the wide gap is between most politicians ears.
…
Juss sayin’
👍
“Yes, hotels are racist.”
Wouldn’t it be more efficient to make a list of the few things that are NOT racist?
Mathematics is racist.
Objective reality is racist.
– Kle.