Day: January 6, 2025

“They Don’t Love Our Country”

That is the statement made by the Orange Man over the flags flying at half mast…..(I have no problem with it)….

Here’s the report of his thinking….

President-elect Donald Trump is not happy that American flags will fly at half-mast to honor the late President Jimmy Carter during his inauguration.

In a post to Truth Social on Friday afternoon, Trump expressed his frustration with the symbol of mourning during his second inauguration on January 20 and accused Democrats of being gleeful about the optics of the coinciding commemoration.

“Democrats are all ‘giddy’ about our magnificent American Flag potentially being at ‘half mast’ during my Inauguration. They think it’s so great, and are so happy about it because, in actuality, they don’t love our Country,” Trump wrote. “Because of the death of President Jimmy Carter, the Flag may, for the first time ever during an Inauguration of a future President, be at half-mast.”

https://www.salon.com/2025/01/03/hints-he-will-see-about-half-mast-flags-for-carter-during-inauguration/

What a petty and infantile douche!

While he pouts that the flag is at half mast what can he do?

President-elect Trump has expressed frustration that flags will be flying at half-staff when he takes office later this month. President Biden issued the order to honor President Jimmy Carter, who died Sunday at 100. It’s not a timeline that Trump can do anything about—until he takes office, the AP reports.

  • The order: Biden issued the order, in effect for 30 days, on Sunday. Flags are lowered to indicate that the country or a state is in mourning.
  • The rules: The US flag code lays out parameters for lowering the US flag to half-staff, including a 30-day period for current or former presidents covering flags at federal government buildings and their grounds, as well as at US embassies and other sites abroad. Flags also can be ordered lowered in the event of a national tragedy or on Memorial Day. Since the code says that no flag should fly higher than the American flag on the same pole or nearby, state flags are lowered during those periods, too.
  • Who receives the honor: Flags can be lowered at the deaths of others, including the vice president, Supreme Court justices, and members of Congress, though for shorter periods.
  • The deciders: According to the General Services Administration, the president, a governor, and the mayor of the District of Columbia can order US flags to be flown at half-staff.
  • Trump’s reaction: On Friday, the president-elect posted on social media that “Democrats are all ‘giddy'” about the notion that flags will be lowered when he takes office. “Nobody wants to see this,” he wrote.
  • Trump can raise the flags: The code’s 30-day rule isn’t mandatory, so once he becomes president, Trump could override it.
  • He’s done that before: After Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain died in 2018, during Trump’s first term, the Stars and Stripes were briefly lowered but went back up, while flags at the US Capitol and elsewhere stayed at half-staff. The flag was lowered again after complaints from Republicans and Democrats.
  • Precedent: Flags were at half-staff when President Nixon was sworn in for his second term in January 1973. Nixon had issued the order after the death of former President Harry Truman.

Personally I think the flag at half mast is indicative of what is happening in this country with his second term at destroying what is left of our system.

This dullard does not deserve any quarter for he has NO respect for this country or its history.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Lawmakers Are $113 Million Richer

Some US lawmakers made some cash off these wars and such….for me that is insider trading but that is not thew way the courts see it.

Take a look….

Dozens of U.S. lawmakers and their families bought or sold up to $113 million worth of shares in top Pentagon contractors this year, an analysis published on Wednesday revealed.

The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft found that at least 37 members of Congress and their relatives traded between $24-113 million worth of stock in companies listed on Defense and Security Monitor’s Top 100 Defense Contractors index.

As the Quincy Institute noted: “Eight of these members even simultaneously held positions on the Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees, the committees overseeing defense policy and foreign relations. Members of Congress that oversee the annual defense bill and are privy to intelligence briefings have an upper hand in predicting future stock prices.”

The analysis found that one Democratic congressman accounted for the vast bulk of defense stock trading in 2024.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey traded at least $22 million and as much as $104 million worth of shares in companies on the index, including Microsoft, Northrop Grumman, and IBM. Gottheimer—who said his trades are handled by a third-party firm—sits on both the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the National Security subcommittee of the Committee on Financial Services.

Next on the list in distant second place is former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has defended stock trading by lawmakers, and according to Quincy, “sold over $1 million worth of Microsoft stock in late July.”

“The timing of Pelosi’s Microsoft trades in the past have garnered attention, too; in March 2021, she bought Microsoft call options less than two weeks before the Army announced a $22 billion contract with the software company to supply augmented reality headsets,” the analysis states.

“Pelosi had the most profitable 2024 of any lawmaker, netting an estimated $38.6 million from all stock trading activity, according to Quiver Quantitative,” the report adds.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/congress-defense-stock-trading

History should dictate that the GOP lawmakers should be the richest traders…..but this time it is some of the top Dems that profited from their knowledge.There needs to be some reform on this…..but not today…..that will be a later Congress to do the right thing.

I know that was my joke for the day.

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Nukes In Space

Does anyone remember the movie Meteor starring Sean Connery and Natalie Wood?

There was a huge meteor headed toward Earth and the USSR and the US had to combine their nukes in space to thwart an ELE.

Well that was fiction there were no nukes in space or so we are told…..but that just may not be the case….

A Russian spacecraft launched higher than most satellites has long had the Pentagon worried — and new revelations about what it contains have made those concerns all the greater.

Launched in February 2022 just a few weeks before Ukraine was invaded, Russia’s Cosmos 2553 spacecraft is nominally built to test out “newly developed onboard instruments and systems.” According to new reporting from the New York Times, however, the mysterious satellite system contains a “dummy warhead” — a precursor of what could come should the Russians decide to arm the craft for real.

As scary as the concept of a space nuke sounds, it wouldn’t necessarily harm life on Earth — unless you consider eliminating all satellites in its vicinity harm, in which case the people down on the planet below would be seriously screwed.

Back in 1962, the US military actually did detonate a nuclear weapon in space, though the damage from the electromagnetic pulse it emanated seems mostly to have been limited to streetlights dimming in Hawaii, which was below the test.

Scientists learned from that formerly-classified test that doing so was probably a pretty bad idea, and in 1967, both Russia and the United States signed the Outer Space Treaty to prevent, essentially, space warfare. In the years since, however, concerns have grown that Russia may violate the treaty — especially as more and more communications satellites began littering our planet’s orbit.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/russian-space-nuke-revelations

Because of the test in 1962 the Outer Space Treaty was born…..in case the reader is not up on this thingy…..

The Outer Space Treaty of 1967

The treaty was aimed at preventing the militarization of space but that has fallen by the wayside….with the US Space Force and now this Russian news things could get a bit testy in space.

How long before the US side steps the treaty and launches its nukes into space?

Or is it possible they are already out there?

Something else to worry about in the coming year.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”