October 30, 2018

Jack Burkman has really bad timing (re: paid-for Mueller accusation)

https://twitter.com/Jack_Burkman/status/1057304918745333760

Some sad news. On Thursday, November 1, at the Rosslyn
Holiday Inn at noon, we will reveal the first of Special Counsel Robert
Mueller's sex assault victims. I applaud the courage and dignity and
grace and strength of my client.

-----------

I have a feeling this is not going to go well for Mr. Burkman.

October 26, 2018

The "one stop" WHY IT DOES NOT MATTER IF IT WAS A FAKE BOMB thread

I'll just put this in one place here for reference. It has puzzled me that people think it matters one way or the other if the guy made a "real bomb" or a "fake bomb" or "a bomb intended to detonate".

I am a little less puzzled now, since having taken a look at the eejits at Freeperville, many of them seem to think there is an important distinction there.

There is not.

The MAGABOMBER is charged with these offenses:

Violations of 18 U.S.C.
§§ 1716, 879, 844(d), (e),
875, 111, and 2

The one relevant to "mailing a bomb" is this one: 18 USC 844

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/844


(d) Whoever transports or receives, or attempts to transport or receive, in interstate or foreign commerce any explosive with the knowledge or intent that it will be used to kill, injure, or intimidate any individual or unlawfully to damage or destroy any building, vehicle, or other real or personal property, shall be imprisoned for not more than ten years, or fined under this title, or both; and if personal injury results to any person, including any public safety officer performing duties as a direct or proximate result of conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be imprisoned for not more than twenty years or fined under this title, or both; and if death results to any person, including any public safety officer performing duties as a direct or proximate result of conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be subject to imprisonment for any term of years, or to the death penalty or to life imprisonment.

The device had pyrotechnic material of some kind, and was sent with the intent to intimidate. Thirteen of them.

Notice that the statute does not care if the intent is:

"kill, injure, or intimidate"

The statute does not care if you made a fake bomb or a real bomb. It does not matter if your intent was to kill, or merely to intimidate. It is the same freaking statute.

A number of people have suggested this would be relevant to an "attempted murder" charge. Murder is a state crime, not a federal crime. The feds would not be charging him with murder or attempted murder anyway.

To recap - The US law that is relevant to "sending a mail bomb" doesn't care if it is intended to explode or not. Anyone that thinks this is an important distinction one way or the other is either reading the wrong sorts of things in the first place, or simply misinformed.

October 24, 2018

Note to Bomber: You don't need a $6.00 Wal-Mart clock on a mail bomb

So, this is purported to be one of the devices in question:



Among the many "What's Wrong With This Picture?" things that is obvious to anyone with a nodding acquaintance with how almost anything works, is the clock.

A "mail bomb" is a bomb you send through the mail, in the hope that you will blow someone up when it is opened at its destination. It is, of course, utterly pointless to send mail bombs to persons who do not open their own packages in the first place - i.e. to a corporate mail room or to a figure with Secret Service protection. Because they are never going to open their own packages, and the only thing you are going to do is to create alarm.

In other words, sending a mail bomb to the Clintons, CNN, the Obamas or George Soros is a pointless idea in the first place, since none of them open their own mail. Heck, I run a fairly insignificant small business and *I* don't even open my own mail. So, even if your package was delivered and went off as hoped, you wouldn't have any realistic chance of actually harming the person in question.

Now, the other thing about a "mail bomb" is that you want the device to be triggered by the package being opened and/or the object being removed. There are a lot of ways to do that - mechanical, optical, and so on. The basic idea is that you want to close an electrical contact when the device is about to be discovered.

One thing you certainly DO NOT WANT TO USE to trigger your device, is a TIMER.

Time bombs are great for bombs that you want to go off at a particular time, and you can use all kinds of timers for time bombs. Cheap electric alarm clocks are nice, since you don't have to rig up a lot of special circuitry, but you can just use the wires to the alarm speaker to close a relay or other switch to a larger battery to fire your igniter or cap.

However, that's kind of pointless for a mail bomb. Because, again, if you are interested in taking out the recipient of the package at the time they receive it and open it, then you HAVE NO IDEA WHEN THAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN. So, using a timer of any kind is beside the point.

I gather the idea here was to send someone a package and to helpfully let them know what time it is when they open it?

https://www.walmart.com/ip/LCD-Digital-Table-Car-Dashboard-Desk-Electronic-Clock-Date-Time-Calendar-Display-LCD-Digital-Clock-Table-Clock/640253786



That cheap clock, which is the one used as you can tell from the shape and location of the buttons and the bezel, doesn't even HAVE an alarm function.

This device was built for show.

October 18, 2018

Wherein Mike Ramone Appears To Have Engaged In Insider Trading...

https://bluedelaware.com/2018/10/18/an-investment-a-vote-and-a-windfall-what-did-mike-ramone-know-and-when-did-he-know-it/

According to our information, Mr. Ramone invested a significant amount of money in the DBOT in the first part of 2017. At that point, the DBOT was basically a company on paper and in name only. The DBOT was pitched as a stock exchange for Wilmington for a number of years prior but, as of early 2017, had not found a physical location and only employed about a dozen workers, rather than the hundreds as originally promised. And it had not conducted a single trade.

October 17, 2018

You Can Still Donate To Avenatti's PAC

If you like the way he fights, don't forget, he is running The Fight PAC.

The Act Blue donation page for Avenatti's PAC is here:

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/the-fight-pac-1

The first quarterly report was filed two days ago:

http://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/568/201810159125003568/201810159125003568.pdf

11907.98 in receipts

7804.78 in disbursements

Of that 7.8k in disbursements, the lion's share are to:

Act Blue (various amounts)

Break Something (internet advertising) $4500

NGP Van (database provider) $1000

Adam Parkhomenko (travel) $1491

Then there are a bunch of rides on Lyft and some shipping charges.

Advertising is more than half the disbursements so far, so its going to take a whole lot more money before the PAC can start directly supporting candidates.

Pony up.

October 16, 2018

Can You Guess The Party Affiliation Of The Only Cherokee Member in Congress?

Go ahead, I'll wait. Flip a coin if you have to.

The patronizing "noble savage" view of Native Americans prevalent at DU is as much of a racial stereotype as anything else.

There is one Cherokee member in Congress - Rep. Markwayne Mullin. He is an enrolled Cherokee and a vocal Trump supporter.

https://twitter.com/MarkwayneMullin/status/994614607753998338

Persons of Cherokee ancestry form a substantial portion of the population of Oklahoma, and vote thusly:

2008:



2012:



2016:



That a Cherokee elected official would come out with a criticism of Warren, for merely defending herself against Trump's "Pocahontas" routine is not surprising.

What is surprising is the manner in which he transparently managed to turn it into yet another claim that Warren was somehow attempting to secure unspecified benefits in the process.

October 7, 2018

Indy, the floor, it moves!

October 1, 2018

Wherein Mike Ramone Removes All Doubt About What A Dickhead He Is

Typical scumbaggery from Mike Ramone:

https://bluedelaware.com/2018/09/24/mike-ramone-doesnt-like-having-an-opponent/

Long story short - his opponent in this election was employed by a non-profit. So, on the basis of Ramone's "concern" about endorsements over a Facebook post which was as innocuous as it was ambiguous, he threatens the non-profits grant-in-aid funding, prompting the non-profit to fire his opponent.

What a supreme dickhead. Ramone once told me he "wasn't that kind of Republican", but it is beyond obvious that he most certainly is.