A note from our Houston Bureau today drew our attention to a MARVELOUS post over at May 2, 2023 – by Heather Cox Richardson (substack.com).
She – a history prof – does a great job of reciting the importance of the 14th Amendment which Slow Joe and Minions (plus pretenders in Congress) are ignoring when they hint of things like late Social Security checks or late military retirement checks. File these antics under “budget emergency bullshit.”
Because, under law (remember the concept?) the government can’t turn its back on pensions. As she writes it:
“When voters ratified that amendment (14th) in 1868, they added to the Constitution, our fundamental law, the principle that the obligations of the country “shall not be questioned.””
As a result, realize when any elected official speaks of ignoring section iv of the 14th, they become law breakers:
“Section 4.
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
While it’s true that there is a Section 5:
“The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”
Enforce cannot be read by anyone but an imbecile as inferring the power to revoke or ignore. No, sir. Black’s Law Dictionary is extremely precise on what “enforce” means:
“To put into execution; to cause to take effect; to make effective; as, to enforce a writ, a judgment, or the collection of a debt or fine.”
We hold that our forced contributions to Social Security did, in fact, act to suppressing insurrection or rebellion of bankers and bureaucrats. Thus, should be treated with equal dignity in protection from breach as military retirements.
To our thinking, when a Public Officeholder tries the “payments might be late scam” remember the Constitution and American Jurisprudence have mechanisms to remove traitors and turncoats who can’t uphold their Oaths of Office.
Let the Bad Banks fail and the Banksters get their due. Military Retirements and Social Security BEFORE any sweetheart bailouts.
America has been fooled far too long by crooks and bureaucrats feathering their own nests. We deserve honest government and honest money, as well.
One Other Reader Note
From a retired O-5 we know:
“I applaud any soul who wants to serve their nation, to “defend and protect” the U.S. and our Constitution. Yet I am somewhat concerned over the scope and rate of social change impacting the services. Case in point: I’m exactly not sure how the parent of high school teens, or many teens themselves, will take the Navy’s approval to use a drag queen influencer to amp up failing recruitment.
One might think that recent Bud Light debacle would send a message to those in business and government leadership positions that society-at-large is still rather traditionally oriented. As with Budweiser, trying to appeal to fringe social elements may well turn off the larger pool of folks the Navy wants to recruit.
So I’m thinking, as a former service member with over 22 years in uniform, that the average young adult is going to think along these lines: “Gee, do I really want to deploy, and possibly bunk for 6-9 months at sea on a ship with drag queen crew mates?” I guess maybe I’m just too set in my ways and, like Gen MacArthur famously said, “just fade away.”
As we said in radio half a century ago:
And the hits just keep on coming!
-Ure
Money for Postal Pensions was allegedly put aside for the next 75 years.We’ll see if that holds.I’ve got another 59 years to collect.
Mean like the Social Security “Trust US” fund? Which was gov’t promptly loaned to ITSELF at lower rates than market to fund this shit-show of an Accounting conjuring?
Congress enacted debt limit for WWI
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/the-long-story-of-us-debt-from-1790-to-2011-in-1-little-chart/265185/
Current chart:
https://www.thebalancemoney.com/national-debt-by-year-compared-to-gdp-and-major-events-3306287
debt facts:
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/national-debt/#:~:text=The%20debt%20grew%20over%204%2C000,of%20the%20war%20in%201865.
Japan has the highest debt to gdp ratio::
https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/CG_DEBT_GDP@GDD/CHN/FRA/DEU/ITA/JPN/GBR/USA
Ms. Richardson explains it, where I did not, but this is as I said a month or two ago.
The Government has certain contractual financial obligations. These are Social Security and Medicare (and any other NOT MEANS TESTED benefits), interest on the National debt, the federal portion of unemployment benefits, and payment for certain military expenses. This is the stuff which WILL get paid, period.
Things like Congresscritters’ salaries and stipends, Federal government employees’ salaries, Federal/State and Federal/Local “projects,” climate and environmental programs, all “pet projects” and “pork-barrel projects,” foreign aid, NGOs, and all means-tested (welfare) programs will NOT get paid.
So tell me again: Where’s the downside to the government NOT passing a CR, and forcing itself to “live within its budget, and its means…?”
Because when everything starts rolling again, they will all get back pay for staying at home on vacation.
They always get paid after the hysteria dies down.
Granted.
In a perfect world, they wouldn’t.
Mankind should always strive for perfection.
Hey George, since you mentioned that liner, you’ll appreciate this…did ja know Pat St. John on SXM 60’s Gold has a voicer of Bill Drake introducing his show? I think it goes like this: “And now Ladies and Gentleman, the Pat St. John show”.
I grew up with the “Drake” format but never knew he did voicers! He did the one you mentioned too “And the hits, just keep on comin'”!
Giving me flashbacks. I was an AM Chief Engineer in 1973.
Has anyone noticed a weakening of the AM signal for the stations in your area over the past couple of months? It’s getting increasingly difficult to get the talk radio station to come through in our area. Makes me wonder if they’re trying to phase that spectrum out as early as possible if they’re talking about having nothing but FM on car radios in the future.
DEFINITELY around here.
The newer car radios are SHIT when it comes to AM, the move to the stubby antenna’s are a big part of the problem there I think, but it is very noticeable even with my at home AM radios which I have used for a long time.
WGR Detroit, and WLW Cincinnati, both clear channel stations, were always my “go to” stations when driving and I really didn’t want to listen to “ALL Political” programming crap on the rest of talk radio while I was driving. (they both still have a LOT of original local broadcasting) Those signals even during the day would easily cover a 200 to 250 mile range from their transmitters and I could easily pick them up from Pittsburgh (home of KDKA the FIRST ever radio station) to Chicago and from the Mackinaw Straits (for WGR) to Nashville /Louisville (I don’t tend to drive south of those places). NO MORE!!
I am not sure about WGR it is seems to me that WLW has cut it’s power dramatically it’s signal deterioration is the worst. I recently actually drove past the WLW transmitter site (just down the road from the the biggest of the VOA transmitter sites – now closed), first time in probably 30 years, and OMG it has turned into a real estate development site and the old transmitter building which housed their million watt transmitter (which could be cranked up to 2 million watts in time of National Emergency) looked nearly abandoned!! If I had to guess it would be that WLW, which used to be the “Most Powerful Station In The Nation” is down to the 10k power range.
SAD … I loved the night time 1/2 continent coverage of the old Clear Channel AM signals. WABC from NYC and WLS in Chicago were my midnight driving choice if east of the Mississippi, alas I can’t hear them at all anymore at any time.
Radio … the STUPIDITY of shutting down “older methods” of communication when it comes to radio just amazes me. People have been BLINDED by the new technology of the Internet and Satellites.
*Short Wave News Broadcasting:
*Shut Down the Loran and Omega systems for navigation
*Failure to update AM broadcasting to new technology
*Short Wave News Broadcasting
Now that both China, Russia, and a myriad of smaller states (including India at times0 have basically shut off news from the West via the Internet … and most SW broadcasting having ceased, the people in those “News Deserts” have little way to obtain OUTSIDE news!! It was easier for them to get OUTSIDE news in 1965 than it is TODAY!!
Exactly HOW are we, or any other westernized country, supposed to get IT’S side of a story into those NOW CLOSED societies without SW radio since the Internet has now become CENSORSHIP CENTRAL for most governments in the world that censor?
The cost to run our SW broadcasting system was CHEAP compared to other ways to try to get our message out, but of course WHILE the internet was open the internet was cheaper, at least to those areas that had internet access that the average person could get … AND AFFORD TO PAY FOR (SW reception is cost free once you have a receiver).
I could go on and on about the IDIOCY of the younger crowd not understanding WHY SW broadcasting was such a big thing for so long … but alas I would just be repeating myself endlessly
*Shut Down the Loran and Omega systems for navigation
Those GROUND BASED radio system worked well for long distance, medium distance, and even short distance navigation. They did NOT rely upon vulnerable space based satellites to work and had done the job for very little cost for a long time. NOW Omega is shut down and Loran has been shut down in North America (Europe kept their Loran System up for their coastal areas AND the Med)
The “cost” savings for the US to keep it’s Loran System up and running as a back up was just $20 million a year compared to our GPS system of $1.5 billion a year. The difference? The GPS is paid for by separate funding, the Loran System came out of the Coast Guard Budget which had “better things to do with the money”!!
Loran was and is good for up to about 600 miles offshore plus of course ALL inland areas as long as the stations have been built. It’s accuracy was guaranteed to about 100 meters out to that distance
For true Round The World coverage Omega was the system, it truly covered the entire world, though it’s accuracy was only guaranteed to about 45 miles – 60km +-. Only needing 11? stations and 11? repeaters scattered around the world, the country where each station or repeater was located paying the cost of that station, it was only costing the US about $5 million a year to keep operating. The US led the way in pushing through the decommissioning of the Omega System and since several of the main stations and repeaters were US based (including our territories) once the US left the system it would be useless, so the rest of the world agreed.
VOILA with the shut down of Omega and domestic Loran the US has NO ground based long distance navigation system to provide backup to the GPS system if it shuts down (forget the aviation system … those stations do NOT help navigate on the oceans or waterways)
AGAIN … an “assumption” that the high tech GPS would ALWAYS be available and OPEN for use by those needing to navigate. An assumption that has already been proved to be WRONG several times in the recent past.
*Failure to update AM broadcasting to new technology
The AM radio band has some unbeatable advantages over the Internet or the FM radio band. #1 being that is is a LONG DISTANCE radio signal … such as VOA and the BBC used for sending information into countries that kept out outside news sources.
The technology of AM to be MUCH better and to carry LOTS of data in addition to it’s voice only signal is sitting on the shelf ready to go …. but the FCC has CHOSEN to NOT implement it so it just sits there.
The ONLY country that has moved to move to a signal that includes the traditional VOICE that old style receivers can receive and at the same time add a lot of digital information to that signal is India for it’s longer range AM stations. And what India uses isn’t even the most advanced of the new systems which can do a LOT more.
An Advanced AM signal could include traditional AM along with digital AM AND lots of text at the same time, which for SW could mean a screen read out of the news that is being said orally and “IF” a language translator chip was added to the receiver that text could easily become a VOICE in the listener’s native language!! No need to be able to speak or read English! (or whatever language the SW broadcast was in) since your receiver would orally give you the news etc. in you native language.
In fact it gets even better than that!!
With the bandwidth available in an AM signal and the new compression techniques a Slow Frame Rate /Low Resolution TV signal could be embedded in the signal at the same time!! (8 frames per second B&W @ 120×160).
ALL FOR FREE to the one listening or reading the data sent.
The assumption in DC and elsewhere seems to have been that EVERYBODY will always be able to get the Internet AND will be able to PAY for receiving the internet!! Nothing could be further from the truth in the real world of the world.
Anyway … enough of my complaining about the IDIOCY of those in DC and elsewhere and their failure to look past their infatuation with the most recent technology that fascinates them. Those people have NO ability to understand the common person in any third world country and also operate under the assumption that EVERY country will ALWAYS remain open and free to technology and NOTHING that happens will ever disrupt the GPS signals that we rely upon daily.
“Officially,” AM radio has become highly-directional, especially at night, when they virtually all cut power. “Officially” this is so they won’t walk on Spanish-language stations in Cuba and Mexico, and French-language stations in Canada, and because the AM band has become “so cluttered.”
I liked being in KMOX land and listening to KDKA or being pretty much anywhere in the Eastern half of CONUS and listening to WABC or WLW, or broadcasts from the
World’s
Largest
Store,
atop the Sears Tower. Surprisingly, I now get the best coverage from WLAC, which comes in clear from Northern Indiana to the Catskills, and WRVA. Speaking of, WRVA (Richmond, VA) and WOWO (Ft. Wayne, IN) are allegedly both 50,000W stations, but when listening to c2cAM, I get cleaner, stronger reception with less “road fade” from WRVA (and sometimes WBZ), even if I’m within 40-50 miles of FWA. WOWO is no longer clear channel, but they must cut the hell out of its xmit power when the sun goes down…
Today’s car radios suck. When I was doing aftermarket installs, I would try to talk people into Pioneer Supertuners because they were at or near the top WRT sensitivity, selectivity, image- and adjacent channel-rejection, etc, for both AM and FM. I didn’t make any more money on ’em, but they were significantly-better as radios, than anything else. Then again, radio was a lot more important in 1980 than it is now.
Pioneer is still making Supertuner III-D receivers, which are likely the absolute best receivers you can buy for both AM and FM, although I don’t know which head units in their product line have them and which don’t.
I’d assume the marine radios do, but then, they have stuff like Alexa and Appleplay, which are Internet-dependent. This tells me they’re designed to never be more than six miles out or 10 miles from a celltower so… I dunno.
Then there’s vehicles like my Highlander, where stuff like the climate controls are integrated into the factory radio. I do not know if aftermarket is even possible, and frankly don’t care enough to find an honest installer (assuming there are any) and ask.
@Stephen 2
The antennas are, indeed, a problem. Newer ones are amplified. Amplifiers don’t just amplify signal, but also amplify noise. They use stubby antennas because they’re aerodynamic, and amplify them on the theory that with road and car noises, the passengers won’t notice the noise, but will only notice station fade.
There is no really good length for a portable AM antenna. I used 44″ when I was doing this stuff: I’d buy a 48″ antenna, then surgically-alter it so it’d only raise to 44 inches. Bear in-mind this was back in the late ’70s / early ’80s and nobody but the tux-crowd was listening to FM radio, yet.
BTW, ALL the glass-embedded antennas suck, no matter what.
Wow. Didn’t realize it was THAT bad all over. I’m just trying to get some talk radio during the daylight hours when I’m on the road. The Jeep’s radio doesn’t get anything but static until just about the city limits of the county seat. If I ever have time I’m going to open up the dash and check the antenna line but that doesn’t look like it’s happening any time soon. The ’05 Ford I drive usually has good reception no matter what but the ability to raise the volume high enough to hear over the road noise isn’t what it used to be. Could be too much time spent airborne jumping rocks in the pasture. It’s headed back to the mechanic I trust (a dwindling list for sure!) in about a week for, probably a new hub, or two, which would make it the third one on that side if it needs replacing.
We actually have not one radio to listen to in the house, however. They used to be all over the place but now they’re all composting somewhere. Strange to be in an era of total connection to all things, ALL the time, but to see the actual communications we rely on so drastically undermined according to what y’all have reported.
The central bank’s move pushed its benchmark policy rate, the fed funds rate, to a new range of 5%-5.25%, the highest since September 2007. The Fed said future rate hikes would be contingent on the impact of previous rate hikes on the economy and financial developments.
As part of its most aggressive rate hiking campaign since the 1980s, the US central bank has increased the target range for its benchmark interest rate — the fed funds rate — by 5 percentage points since March 2022. Wednesday’s decision was unanimous.
Ok Class now that all of the reports are in repeat after me WE ARE SO SCREWED!!
Yes Sir E.. Bob.
I’ve heard this atleast a dozen times since i got to Idaho,
“don’t be talking that California bullsjit here.”
hahaha.
I finally said to some one, ohh you mean, prop up the economy by raising taxes which raises costs of living which raises wages, to produce artificial growth. expand the police force to deal with the crime that those who can’t afford to keep pace with such policies commit to survive?
guy looked at me and blinked and said yeah.
see there is very little crime where I’m at. for 3 good reasons. #1. everyone is carrying a gun. everyone. #2. wages (albeit smaller than national average) go alot farther. example: i can rent a 2 bedroom apartment for what I make on half of a one week paycheck. half of one paycheck! when is the last time your housing costs were half of a weeks wage? #3. there is a zero tolerance for stupid shit. hard ass sherrif in town and if you run around thieving and doing shit like that round here? If the sheriff doesn’t get you first? it is my understanding the local cowboys will grab a theif up, brand you with a hot cattle brand, stuff you in the trunk of a car and drop you off in the middle of nowhere a thousand miles away with a stiff warning not to come back. that iw the unspoken rule to thieves round here.
that being said, good to see ya all. don’t worry about Biden his days are numbered.
I highly suggest, making ure way to higher ground. chaos is coming. no doubt about that. you don’t have to be a psychic prophet to see that one.
good thing I found a job that has 5 years guaranteed work. the ore is already bought. all we have to do is dig it up and deliver it. job security, year round work for 5 years. the b3st place to be when the economy starts crashing. and it’s already started falling.
I gotta get. I just found a super cool book I forgot I had.
~may you see the hand of God in all you do today. ~
who knows where I will be. THE DUDE may have other plans for me. right now, I’m really digging star valley Wyoming. it’s so beautiful there. so amazingly beautiful. however, I give THE DUDE permission to take me wherever HE wants me to go. if DUDE says time get. I say,
-> Yes! <-
You want some kind of back-up heat at that location. The coldest night of my life was spent in an apartment with a heat pump and no strip heaters at -5 F. Fortunately I had a decent winter sleeping bag as back-up. You need one as well. Wiggy has some of his best arctic stuff on sale. These are the rectangular car campers; he has lighter mummy models as well:
https://www.wiggys.com/specials/memorial-day-sleeping-bag-sale-10-off/hunter-ultima-thule-rectangular-sleeping-bag/
https://www.wiggys.com/specials/memorial-day-sleeping-bag-sale-10-off/hunter-antarctic-rectangular-sleeping-bag/
One of the fun things about ranching is never knowing exactly what you’ll find whenever you go out to make your rounds.
Mysterious Jet Fighter Crashes Near Mertzon and No One is Talking
https://sanangelolive.com/news/crashes/2023-05-03/mysterious-jet-fighter-crashes-near-mertzon-and-no-one-talking
MERTZON, TX — A Czechoslovakian-made fighter jet crashed on a ranch just northwest of Mertzon. According to a witness who saw it happen as well as the air traffic control flight track, the jet was flying unusual raster patterns around San Angelo and had just departed the San Angelo airspace headed towards Midland, climbing to 10,000 feet
At 4:08 p.m. Tuesday, the flight path ends over the Rocker B Ranch north of Barnhart when the L-39 Albatross recorded a high rate of descent of over 2,100 feet per minute.
According to witnesses, the jet had cameras mounted at several places. Those cameras were fetched and taken away from San Angelo quickly after the crash, we were told.
People with knowledge of the crash landing are tight-lipped. The Irion County Sheriff would not talk to us. Reports from the field are that workers who arrived at the crash site were concerned about the “Russian” markings and words on the plane.
Usually, when an incident like this happens, the National Transportation Safety Board dispatches a team of crash investigators. Concurrently with the start of the investigation, usually within hours, the NTSB Newsroom on Twitter announces the crash. This incident happened over 24 hours ago and there has been no official statement from any government agency.
My daughter and her husband live in Mertzon and she said the people that came and took the cameras off the plane and that were at the Rocker B were military. The pilot was still in the plane when the military arrived but no word as to his/her condition or where they went.
Uh, a crash usually involves damage to the machine that would prevent its being used again without major repairs. The photos of that one look like it could be refueled and flown out from the road it attempted to land on, although trucking it out is likely more prudent.
There are quite a few L39s in the US, because it’s a high performance airplane that’s relatively cheap.
It was reported that the engine’s compressor failed which resulted in no thrust. I’m impressed the pilot put it down as well as he did because it didn’t look like that plane would have a glide ratio much better than your typical rock in the yard without a LOT of wind under its wings.
The flight pattern can be seen in the article, or could be seen yesterday. It went just up to but not quite on to Goodfellow AFB airspace and then took a path out toward Barnhart when the trouble started. She wondered if it were headed out toward Iraan, a lot farther out, where she said she’d heard for a long time strange “stuff” had been happening. When I asked what she meant by “stuff” she said there has been a LOT of things like blacked-out SUVs, black helicopters and armored vehicles hauling equipment in and leaving empty over the years there. That brought back the memories of reading about a D.U.M.B. site being constructed out there. She didn’t know what that was so I had to “educate” her about those things.
Back in my day, they discharged you from service if you were gay. My, how times have changed.
It sounds like sec 4 of the 14th amendment was written by the Union specifically as punishment to the former Confederacy and was , more or less , the victors locking in their spoils. I see little application to the question of fulfilling obligations although in all honesty I did not read the article.
Interesting graph in yesterday’s NY Times where it showed that the 4 banks closed in the last month (1 was a voluntary liquidation … NO FDIC or FED bailout money used and all customers got ALL of their money back) the TOTAL amount of deposits involved are already MORE than ALL of the closures in the 2007-2010 collapse!!
Yes, you read that right. Already the amount of money in involved in the 3 bank closures to date are already MORE than the TOTAL amount involved in the 2007-2010 collapse!! (and probably 2 more coming by next Monday)
Just in case you have not downloaded and printed out your Bank Bankruptcy Bingo Card (see yesterday’s comments) NEVER FEAR … there are MORE closures to come!! and you can still play the game!!
On a more serious note the credit contraction is going to be severe once it gets going in earnest. Most of the commercial banks are going to have to husband Capitol so as to rebalance their balance sheets from the chaos in Commercial Real Estate where they are heavily exposed. That means FEWER LOANS! even before consumer credit bankruptcy numbers tick up.
Unlike the 2007-2010 collapse which occurred quickly for banks since their losses were in traded CMO’s (collaterized mortgage obligation bonds) which under bank accounting rules HAD to be “marked to market” relatively quickly, the current losses are mostly in direct real estate loans and government bonds for which entirely different accounting rules apply … which draws out the timeline of the banking collapse.
US Government longer duration bonds, even if their value is cut in 1/2 by the rise in interest rates, NEVER have to be “marked to market” per the current accounting rules even though REAL LOSSES are sitting there in plain sight for everybody, including the regulators, to see (SVB collapse was caused by this issue – per the books and federal regulations SVB was a solvent institution …. in the real world they were insolvent ).
Direct real estate loans, if “marked” on the books as to be held to duration, versus sold (ala Fannie May or Freddie Mac type loans), again do NOT have to be adjusted for the collapsed value of those loans due to the rise in interest rates (where the mid size banks do a LOT of lending). It is only when those loan “being held to maturity” go into default … ie: vacancies /reduced rent /etc cause the borrower to be “cash flow short” and can no longer make their payments that the bank FINALLY has to make an adjustment to the value of that loan on the books.
In most downturns it takes a minimum of 6 months of NON payments for the bank to formally declare an insolvent COMMERCIAL entity in “default” on a Commercial Loan since the banks and borrowers play games with the timing of when the banks are FORCED to finally declare a default. The original loan terms may have put a 90 day clause in the documents … but then the bank and borrower will REWRITE the terms if the bank can get a partial payment and set up a new payment schedule … and once that new payment schedule is defaulted on (another 90 days) then even try to REWRITE the terms AGAIN.
In fact back in the great recessions of 1974-1976 and 1979-1983 I saw banks jump through hoops for up to TWO YEARS to keep from declaring a Commercial Loan, including real estate loans, in default as they and their customer tried to “Wait Out” the recession.
The long and short then wrt Banks … it often takes a LONG TIME for the insolvency of a bank to show up on the surface!! and even then it will NOT show up on their audited Financial Statements since the accounting rules that apply to US banks will continue to hide the true condition of the bank’s asset portfolio from being on those statements (except for the CMO’s from the ’00 period where losses HAD to be recognized fairly quickly)
MORE bank pain to come.
MORE bank closures to come.
Slower and longer period to endure than happened in the last go around in 2007-2010
Get your Bank Bankruptcy Bingo card today!!
YOU can still play the game as to which 5 in a row wins first (but remember even when there is one winner the game will continue so you will have multiple opportunities to win!)
The