Geopolitical Weekly: Avoiding a War in Space, May 17, 2016

By Omar Lamrani

Space is becoming more congested, contested and competitive. Since the Soviet Union put the first satellite, Sputnik I, into space in 1957, no nation has deliberately destroyed another's satellite in orbit. But there is a growing possibility that battles may soon be waged in space.

Although the militarization of space started long ago, a number of technological developments and tests over the past decade show that the race toward its weaponization is accelerating. Driven by Washington's dominance of and strategic dependence on space, U.S. rivals are working to develop and deploy anti-satellite weapons (widely known as ASATs). The technology, which began to be developed during the Cold War, has become an area of intense competition for the world's most capable militaries over the past decade.

For the United States, being the leader in military space technologies provides immense advantages. At the same time, its outsize reliance on those technologies entails risks. The current unequal dependence on space, the United States fears, could give adversaries incentive to attack its infrastructure in orbit. Washington is therefore pushing to bolster its capabilities and is preparing for the possibility that a future conflict could escalate into space. As the militarized space race continues, the United States will stay focused on deterrence. A war in space would be devastating to all, and preventing it, rather than finding ways to fight it, will likely remain the goal.

An Unequal Dependence

Washington's dependence on space infrastructure reflects the United States' dominance in space. The tyranny of time and distance inherently hinders the United States' ability to deploy its military across the globe. But the space domain effectively helps the country to overcome the limitations, allowing for enhanced force projection. As a result, the U.S. military relies heavily on its orbital assets for navigation, intelligence collection, precision targeting, communication, early warning and several other crucial activities.

The great advantages that space assets afford the United States have not gone unnoticed by its potential rivals. Though China and Russia, for instance, also rely on space, they are less dependent on their space assets than the United States is. First, neither nation has as much in orbit. In addition, because both put greater focus on their immediate geographic regions, they can use more conventional tools to achieve their objectives. For instance, Beijing, by virtue of geographic proximity, could rely on its ground-based radars and sensors in a conflict in the Taiwan Strait. The United States, on the other hand, would have to lean on its satellites to support a response in the same area.

Despite the United States' superior ability to strike at enemy space constellations — groups of similar kinds of satellites — competitors may determine that the resulting loss of space access would be worthwhile if they could severely degrade U.S. space access. And while the United States is the most proficient nation in space-based warfare, there are limits to its abilities. Satellites in orbit follow predictable movements, have restricted maneuverability and are difficult to defend from an attack.

There is little doubt that a full kinetic strike on U.S. satellites, which would inflict physical damage, would invite a devastating response. But tactics designed to degrade the satellites' abilities, rather than to destroy their hardware, could be deemed less escalatory and therefore perhaps worth the risk. These include jamming signals, hacking operational software and dazzling (temporarily blinding) or permanently disabling sensors. Calculating the risk of nonkinetic strikes, which would create little physical damage and could even be reversed, a potential foe would take into account the United States' hesitance to escalate a conflict in space, given its heavy dependence on orbital technology.

Reinforcing Deterrence

If the United States wants to preserve its primacy in the face of increasing threats to its strength in space, Washington will need to invest in strategies to deter attacks on its orbital assets. The first step in strengthening space deterrence is to ensure proper attribution: The United States cannot hold its enemies accountable for attacks if it does not know who initiated them. But the vastness of space, along with the difficulty of obtaining physical evidence from attacked satellites, can make responsibility hard to prove.

To that end, the United States is investing in a second-generation surveillance system, known as Space Fence, to track satellites and orbital debris. Slated to begin operating in 2018, Space Fence uses ground-based radars that give it 10 times the detection capability of its predecessor, the Air Force Space Surveillance System. In addition, the United States has been working with a classified satellite defense technology called the Self-Awareness Space Situational Awareness system, which reportedly will be able to pinpoint the source of a laser fired at a satellite.

Redundancy and shielding can also deter limited attacks against satellites. The innate redundancy of large satellite constellations could make attacking them too risky; such an assault would fail to significantly impair U.S. space control while still inviting retaliation. Meanwhile, more widespread use of resistant antenna designs, filters, surge arresters and fiber-optic components, which are less vulnerable to attack, is already being explored to further shield satellites from jamming, dazzling and blinding.

Finally, the United States can work alongside its global partners and allies to convey the idea that a full-blown battle that would destroy orbiting satellites would be bad for all of humanity. Reinforcing this message and openly tying it to a powerful U.S. response could further bolster deterrence.

Preventing a War in Space

While the United States works to discourage hostilities in space, in no small part to ensure its enduring advantage there, Washington is also taking more steps to plan for the contingency of a war in space. The Department of Defense has nominated the secretary of the U.S. Air Force as the initiative's principal adviser, tasked with coordinating space-related efforts across the military. Late last year, the United States also established the Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center at Colorado's Schriever Air Force Base. The center facilitates information sharing across the national security space enterprise and has already run a number of wargame scenarios to simulate conflict in orbit.

Furthermore, the Pentagon has added $5 billion to its space programs budget in 2016, pushing the total to about $27 billion. The budget provides for spending on technologies and tactics that can help the United States mitigate and recover from a space attack. One effort, spearheaded by the Operationally Responsive Space Office, aims to develop small satellites and associated launch systems that can be built and deployed quickly and cheaply. (For the most part, the current U.S. fleet consists of large, sophisticated and expensive satellites, some of which cost billions of dollars and take years to construct.)

As part of this endeavor, the office has directed the development of a standardized but modular satellite chassis that allows for multiple payload variations. The result is increased flexibility, as well as lower costs and quicker turnaround in production. Developing a less expensive and more efficient way to launch replacements for destroyed or disabled systems is the next step. With that in mind, the Operationally Responsive Space Office is funding the development of the Spaceborne Payload Assist Rocket-Kauai (SPARK) launch system, designed to send miniaturized satellites into low-Earth and sun-synchronous orbits. In its efforts to rapidly launch swarms of miniaturized satellites on the cheap, the U.S. military is also looking to leverage the private sector. Companies such as Virgin Galactic (with the LauncherOne) and the Rocket Lab (with the Electron Vehicle) have expressed keen interest in the initiative.

The small satellite revolution promises the speedy replacement of disabled satellites in the event of attack — theoretically securing the U.S. military's use of space constellations in support of operations during a conflict. Small satellites are not a magic bullet, however; key satellite functions will still depend on bulkier and more complex systems, such as the large but critically important nuclear-hardened command-and-control mission satellites. Many of these systems involve hefty antennas and considerable power sources.

Given that access to orbit may not be guaranteed during a war in space, the United States has also been exploring alternative ways to perform some of the core functions that satellites now provide. At this stage, high-flying unmanned aerial vehicles with satellite-like payloads offer the most advanced alternative. But considering the vehicles' vulnerability to sophisticated air defenses, their lower altitude and endurance relative to orbital satellites, and their limited global reach, this remains a tentative solution at best.

Overall, the United States is getting far more serious about the threat of space warfare. Investment in new technologies is increasing, and the organizational architecture to deal with such a contingency is being put in place. In the race between shield and sword, however, there is no guarantee that offensive ASAT capabilities will not have the advantage, potentially denying critical access to space during a catastrophic celestial war.

The High Cost of a War in Space

Increased competition in space is reviving fears of a war there, one with devastating consequences. Humanity depends on space systems for communication, exploration, navigation and a host of other functions integral to modern life. Moreover, future breakthroughs may await in space, including solar energy improvements, nuclear waste disposal and extraterrestrial mining.

A war in space would disable a number of key satellites, and the resulting debris would place vital orbital regions at risk. The damage to the world economy could also be disastrous. In severity, the consequences of space warfare could be comparable to those of nuclear war. What's more, disabling key constellations that give early launch warnings could be seen as the opening salvo in a nuclear attack, driving the threat of a wider conflagration.

While the United States and other nations are taking measures to better prepare for a potential war in space, their emphasis will likely remain on deterrence. This is an important notion to understand, not only for potential U.S. enemies but also for the United States itself. For instance, it is conceivable that technological advancements in the coming decades could allow the United States to recover militarily from a space clash more quickly than the ever-more space dependent China or Russia. In such a scenario, the costs that a space war would have for the world as a whole might be enough to dissuade Washington from launching its own space attack.

Avoiding a War in Space is republished with permission of Stratfor.

Just an observation on the job....

Somethings just make this really worth it.

I hit a Wendy's on the way to work and used the drive through. To my pleasant surprise, when I get to the window the lady told me the driver in front of me paid for my lunch. May be "Pay it Forward" but I'm honestly thinking it was a citizen thanking a cop they will never know.

Get to work and I get to announce one of my officers is wearing his shield for the last time. As an officer. He promotes to Sergeant of Police on Monday. Good work Chuck, you will be a great supervisor.

I get on the street just in time to hear another unit asking for immediate backup and being able to direct support. And I get to check by because the "man of the hour" was upset he was arrested because an officer was "hassling him" for no reason, "He never saw me but he starts to follow me..." I had to ask, "If he never saw you, how did he follow you..." Never quite got an answer before he started to scream. Oh well, another satisfied customer.

Got to get a 13 year old off the streets. Literally, off the highway, he was walking on the shoulder of US-59, in an excellent place to get killed. When I walked why he was doing it he said, "I'm walking home..." Seems he missed the bus and was walking home. I got him home and mom was not happy. Hopefully that fixes that issue.

After getting another complaint, I needed coffee, and then I'm the only unit available for a urgent call, debris on the highway. As I head up there, I get a real laugh out of this highway sign:

Took a few seconds to click on what I was looking at.

Get to the call, it's a plastic tank in the middle of US 59, an excellent place to get killed. So I get to use my Tahoe to push it off the highway.

I drive back to the station for a late lunch of leftover Hamburger Helper and I think, "I really love this job..." It fits me. I've never been a 9-5 worker and this works.

Be safe out there!

Officer Down

Chief of Police Darrell Lamond Allen
Marlin Police Department, Texas
End of Watch: Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Tour: 21 years
Incident Date: 11/1/2015

Chief of Police Darrell Allen succumbed to a gunshot wound sustained 10 days earlier while struggling with a subject inside of a club at 301 East Avenue B in Temple, Texas.

Chief Allen and another Marlin Police Department officer were working a secondary employment assignment at the club when Chief Allen attempted to arrest a subject for creating a disturbance at approximately 1:20 am. The man produced a handgun and shot Chief Allen in the face as the two struggled.

The subject was arrested by the other Marlin police officer and a Temple Police Department officer took the man into custody.

Chief Allen was transported to Baylor Scott & White Hospital where he remained until succumbing to the wound on November 10th, 2015.

Chief Allen had served in law enforcement for 21 years. He was survived by his wife and children.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Nemo me impune lacessit

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh.

Meat eaters acting like vegans...

I know a few vegans and they are nothing like this. Still too good to not post!

The Winter of Our Financial Discontent, April 26, 2016

Summary

Editor's Note: This is the second installment of a five-part series authored by ETM Analytics, an economic and financial advisory firm with offices in the United States and South Africa. The analysis contained herein reflects the views of ETM and not of Stratfor. In fact, as you will see, it is different from our existing worldview in some significant ways. We are sharing this with our readers because it is good work, produced using rigorous analytic tools and methodology. As always, we look forward to receiving comments and feedback. At the end of the series, we will share what we hear from you along with Stratfor's thoughts on how our view differs from ETM's.

Cash is perhaps the most easily exchanged asset in the world, and the U.S. dollar, the de facto global reserve and trade currency, towers above all others. But its liquidity changes; sometimes it is more abundant and moves through the financial system more effortlessly than it does at other times. And the cycles by which this happens can be globally destabilizing events, for they impact every corner of the world.

Analysis

ETM Analytics has created an index that shows distinct peaks and troughs of dollar liquidity, henceforth called dollar liquidity summers and winters. Summers are periods of abundant liquidity when banks rapidly create new loans or when central banks inject large sums of money into the financial system. Summers are associated with greater investor confidence, higher risk-taking and rising asset prices. But they can also foster excessive leverage (investing with borrowed money), irrational exuberance and poor capital investment. Moreover, they can inflate bubbles, which can create economic and financial instability.

During liquidity winters, on the other hand, banks' lending standards tighten up, and central banks stop printing money or even withdraw money from the system. Winters are associated with a much lower appetite for investment risk, deflation in bubble sectors, financial crises and recessions. But winters can also correct excesses, reallocate capital more efficiently, repair balance sheets, and make goods and services more affordable.



The U.S. Federal Reserve created a liquidity summer when it implemented a policy of quantitative easing in 2008-2014. When it tapered that policy, the liquidity winter in which we now find ourselves emerged. With the winter came collapsing commodity prices, cracking currency pegs, fearful corporate bond markets, crashing Chinese stocks and volatility on Wall Street.

A Workable Compromise?

So why not just keep the money flowing and enjoy an endless summer? It's an idea that has, in fact, guided many of the Fed's decisions for the past 30 years. Every time a liquidity winter sprung up naturally, the Fed melted it away by fabricating another summer. But if winters and their financial discontents are necessary corrective processes, then an endless summer is not as pleasant as it may at first sound. Perpetuating bad investments and price distortions can come at a high structural cost — a cost that does not even account for currency fragility and the inevitable loss of monetary credibility.

Such was the case in the 1990s. A liquidity summer gave rise to a gratuitous use of leverage. The build-up of global leverage, in turn, led to the contagion of the Asian crisis, the Russian default, the failure of Long-Term Capital Management, the bust of the dot-com bubble and the collapse in U.S. household net worth, which had been inflated far above its long-term historical average. The market eventually restored asset affordability and corrected the imbalance between incomes and asset prices.

The problem, however, is that when net worth rises because of leverage-induced asset inflation, a fall in asset prices impairs the balance sheets of heavily indebted households. Asset deflation sends a pulse of credit contraction through the economy. In a panic, the Fed opened the monetary taps, sparking a new summer and enlarging commodity, property and stock market bubbles by 2007. It also raised U.S. household net worth to levels even higher than those of the 1990s.

By 2006, the Fed normalized its monetary policy to allay concerns of financial instability. But by then it was already too late: When the next winter set in, net worth fell again. Asset deflation restored affordability, but affordability came at the expense of net worth and the health of balance sheets.

The Fed behaved even more aggressively in 2008 than it did in the early 2000s. It lowered interest rates to zero, printed money hand over fist to bail out U.S. banks, monetized the national debt and restored balance sheets. But again, the health of balance sheets was restored at the expense of asset affordability.

The Fed still has not figured out how to restore affordability and normalize monetary conditions at the same time. Meaningful monetary normalization could send paper wealth crashing back down to Earth. Household net worth has proved extremely precarious when it exceeds 600 percent of disposable income (as it currently does). To maintain some degree of asset affordability at these levels, the Fed needs banks with lower lending standards to lend at extremely low rates. Monetary policy normalization does not comport with that strategy, hence the Fed's aversion to raising interest rates.

Washington may believe that this is a workable compromise for now, but the constant reflation of asset bubbles is systemically exhausting. Since 2000, it has taken a 220 percent ballooning in federal debt and a 550 percent explosion in the Fed's balance sheet to maintain the reflation strategy. Along the way, desperate policymakers had to redesign the monetary and banking systems, and wealth and income inequality has increased, favoring asset owners at the expense of those yet to acquire assets. In return, per capita real GDP has grown by only 1 percent per year, and median real household income has fallen.

The Frostbite Spreads

There are almost no good options left for the Fed. Quantitative easing is not the answer. Winters are cyclically painful, but endless summers erode structural stability. Monetary authorities do not want assets to be less affordable, but they also do not want to deflate the price of assets — nor do they want to impair balance sheets. Supporting asset prices through quantitative easing-induced asset buying does not reconcile the differences between affordability and balance sheet repair. If anything, it creates larger, more volatile bubbles. Enacting an additional round of quantitative easing, moreover, could endorse the opinions of some that the Fed is trapped in a cycle of its own making.

Another approach is to try to raise household incomes faster than asset prices, something that would require injecting liquidity into households more directly. This idea has given credence to the concept of "helicopter money," whereby governments raise revenue by selling bonds directly to central banks. But if additional quantitative easing validates the belief that the Fed cannot escape the cycle it finds itself in, helicopter money would validate it even more so. Though it would increase incomes, it could also erode financial and fiscal confidence and engender risks of inflation. If that happened, it could incite a flight to hard assets, such as gold and real estate, from financial assets, such as the government bond market — arguably the biggest financial bubble in history. The financial capitals of the world understand the danger of holding a pin too close to this bubble.

And yet Washington has a potential, albeit temporary, solution: commercial banks, which could shoulder some of the monetary heavy lifting on the Fed's behalf. Commercial banks, because they are licensed to create money, can write new loans to the federal government. Doing so would expand dollar liquidity, keep the spotlight off the Fed and enable the Treasury Department to ramp up fiscal stimulus during an election year.

There are some indications that this effort is already underway. Bank lending is buoyant, and deficit expansion is rising. Low bond yields, tight constraints on the Fed's behavior and the as yet undecided presidential election may all point toward greater fiscal expansionism.

Still, it is unclear just how effective this policy would be. Bank-funded fiscal expansion could warm the winter chill, but it may not be enough to change the dollar liquidity season entirely.

Either way, it is hard to ignore the possibility that the only viable way out of the Fed's dilemma is to allow, or even facilitate, a necessary transition from one period — in which asset price growth outstrips income growth — to an opposite period. The tension between the market imperative of asset affordability and the political imperative of balance sheet protection will be worked out, one way or another, and the process by which that happens will almost certainly be painful. Liquidity winters such as the one in which we find ourselves are associated with much smaller investor appetite for risk, deflation in bubble sectors, financial crises and recessions. It would be a mistake to think that commodity bubbles and emerging market bubbles will be the only casualties of the current cycle. Once the frostbite of winter spreads, it is notoriously difficult to stop.

The Winter of Our Financial Discontent is republished with permission of Stratfor.

Officer Down

Police Officer Stacy Lynn Case
Columbia Police Department, South Carolina
End of Watch: Saturday, November 7, 2015
Age: 37
Tour: 19 years

Police Officer Stacy Case was killed in a vehicle crash when her patrol collided with a University of South Carolina Police Department patrol car at the intersection of College Street and Park Street.

She was responding to a call of shots fired when the collision occurred at approximately 10:30 pm. She was transported to Palmetto Health Richland Hospital where she succumbed to her injuries a short time later. The shots fired report was discovered to be a suicide.

Officer Case had served as a military police officer in the U.S. Army for 15 years and had served with the Columbia Police Department for four years.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Nemo me impune lacessit

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

Lessons Learned From a Grand American Gamble, April 25, 2016

Lessons Learned From a Grand American Gamble

Summary

Editor's note: This is the first installment of a five-part series authored by ETM Analytics, an economic and financial advisory firm with offices in the United States and South Africa. The analysis contained herein reflects the views of ETM and not of Stratfor. In fact, as you will see, it is different from our existing worldview in some significant ways. We are sharing this with our readers because it is good work, produced using rigorous analytic tools and methodology. As always, we look forward to receiving comments and feedback. At the end of the series, we will share what we hear from you along with Stratfor's thoughts on how our view differs from ETM's.

So much has been said about the wealth and power of the United States that to say anything more would be to peddle a cliché, one that has shrouded the U.S. economy in an aura of infallibility.

It makes sense that this would be the case. The United States helms the global economy and has done so with varying degrees of intensity since World War II, when a new international economic system was established at Bretton Woods. Though Washington was not the only architect of that system, it was its chief steward and its biggest beneficiary. And as prosperous as it grew under that system, the United States was enriched further still once the system ended.

But the aura of American economic infallibility has since faded, thanks in part to the economic failures brought to light in the 2008 financial crisis. Instead of correcting those failures, Washington doubled down on the policies that created the crash in the first place, incurring far more debt than it previously had and printing money at unprecedented levels. If this grand gamble fails to pay off, the global financial system could undergo a profound and unstable transition.

Analysis

In the ruins of World War II stood the United States, the only country capable of controlling the levers of international finance. Washington owed its newfound pre-eminence in part to the New Gold-Exchange Standard, one of the key byproducts of the Bretton Woods agreement. Under the agreement, national currencies would no longer be redeemable in gold to citizens; instead, only governments and their central banks could participate in gold redemptions, and then only with dollar reserves. Although gold loosely underpinned this system, its authors never meant for gold to return to its prewar primacy. Europe and Japan, strapped as they were with debt and in need of imports only a country as productive as the United States could provide, stored up their dollar reserves. The new system would establish trust in the dollar by piggybacking off existing confidence in gold.

Lesson 1: Establishing a global currency reserve requires a nation to be supremely productive; to be a creditor to other nations; and to build trust in (and establish the need for) its currency.

Bretton Woods was founded upon an implicit trust that the United States would honor its pledge to redeem gold at $35 per ounce and to be a productive lender. Emboldened by this faith, the U.S. economy expanded in size and reach, domestically and abroad, funded by a surfeit of dollars — more dollars, in fact, than the United States would have been able to amass simply by redeeming gold at the agreed rate. France referred to this disparity as America's "exorbitant privilege."

And it was France that eventually called the United States' bluff by redeeming its stockpiled dollars for gold. Several other countries quickly followed suit, and Bretton Woods began to fall apart almost immediately. It was not until U.S. President Richard Nixon abandoned the gold standard in 1971, however, that the system's disintegration was complete. The price of gold soared, and the 1970s became one of the most economically tumultuous decades of the 20th century.

Lesson 2: There is an inevitable tension surrounding the "exorbitant privilege" — the natural order resists it, and the countries that have it resist giving it away. That tension leads to periodic changes in the monetary order, changes that bring financial instability.

From Privilege to Petrodollars

The United States would actually become even more exorbitantly privileged in the 1980s than it was during the Bretton Woods years. In a peculiar incarnation of the dollar, oil, the most traded commodity on earth, would be priced in and exchanged for dollars exclusively. Major oil producers, with the consent of their de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, saved their dollar income in U.S. Treasury bonds. In return, the United States supplied the Arabian Peninsula with arms and military support. (Western Europe, for its part, acceded to the arrangement so long as the United States subsidized its Soviet containment strategy.)



Unconstrained by the limitations of gold, buttressed by these new petrodollars, and increasingly assertive in the face of a declining Soviet Union, the United States grew its economy through debt. Washington became a dollar factory, producing its currency en masse to buy goods and services throughout the world. Its citizens purchased a high standard of living, while the citizens of other countries purchased future claims to that standard of living — an imbalance that would eventually have to right itself.


Lesson 3: States will do all they can to maintain their exorbitant privilege, even if keeping it facilitates the build-up of unhealthy and unsustainable global economic imbalances.


The End of American Infallibility

To be so privileged required absolute hegemonic power, stable state finances and a dependable financial and monetary system, things the United States had in droves. But things began to change at the turn of the 21st century. The Nasdaq crashed in 2000-2002. Jihadists attacked U.S. soil on 9/11. The Federal Reserve slashed interest rates to 1 percent. These transformative events ushered in an era of fiscal and monetary activism by Washington meant to repair household balance sheets, to fuel another credit cycle and to fund a growing military budget. The budget deficit was increased significantly and the Fed made sure it provided ample liquidity to the financial system in what would be a precursor to its more aggressive quantitative easing programs in 2008. The United States, in effect, doubled down on its debt-based model of growth, and its financial system capitulated in 2008.

Lesson 4: More debt aggravates systemic fragility.

The financial calamity of 2008 drew out a far more audacious, even experimental, fiscal and monetary activism — America's grand gamble. Though it is too early to know for certain if the gamble paid off, current signs bode ill for the prospects of recovery. (If past cycles are a guide, throwing more debt and money at the problem could make the entire system even more fragile.) In fact, the global economy has been in a business cycle downturn since the United States tapered quantitative easing in late 2013. As early as 2014, several emerging markets saw sharp capital outflows. Turkey, as a result, raised interest rates by a staggering 4 percent in one day to prevent a currency crisis. The increase itself was not the end of the world, of course, but it was one of several "mini-crises" — among them, the oil price crash, the Swiss franc de-link from the euro, the fear of deflation, negative interest rates, the Grexit saga, China's stock market crash and Wall Street's choppiness — that could grow into something much more systemically problematic.



Quantitative easing, moreover, may have stabilized things for a spell, but volatility returned as soon as the policy ended. A dollar bull market, which began in 2014, fed into U.S. corporate earnings risks and caused deleveraging in dollar carry trade positions, exacerbating global financial illiquidity.

What has transpired since January 2014 shows the danger of treating the symptoms, but not the disease, of economic distress. Yes, quantitative easing liquefied and pre-emptively bailed out banks. And yes, the dollar bull market and low Treasury bond yields attest to the "success" of Washington's policy experiment. But perhaps these judgments are premature. Quantitative easing also incubated new risks and new kinds of fragility not yet fully understood. And with an enormous balance sheet and near-zero interest rates, the Fed has yet to prove that its recovery will last.

Still, from 2009 to 2015, markets behaved as though the grand gamble worked. But what if that assumption is wrong? What if U.S. exceptionalism is as imperiled now — amid the hangover of a debt super cycle, in the throes of mounting cyclical risks, in the ruins of the Fed's credibility — as it was in 2000 and in 2008? If the Fed cannot fix the problem, is it because the problem was misdiagnosed? And if it was, has the Fed's remedy actually made things worse? Already market pricing has begun to suggest that it has.

Lesson 5: Palliative treatments to monetary and fiscal problems incur long-term and often underestimated costs.

Foundations Crumble

The foundation of the dollar's dominance has crumbled, as has the belief that the United States is economically infallible. The harder America fights to retain its exorbitant privilege, the more it uses the full extent of its power by doubling down on a debt-based growth model and using fiscal and monetary treatments instead of necessary but painful structural reforms. Lesser global powers are increasingly unwilling to allow Washington to leverage its exorbitant privilege if it is unprepared or unable to pay for it with hegemonic dominance, stable state finances, and financial and monetary dependability.

Washington may believe the gamble it has made will instill confidence in the global financial order. But running up more national debt and printing money hand over fist is, in fact, a sign of weakness. Not only does it indict the gamble itself, but it also sets the monetary system on a path of profound transition and with it a prolonged phase of financial instability. Implementing genuine reform would place America's long-term future, not to mention the dollar's reserve status, on a firmer footing, but that could create even more turmoil in the near term, leaving policymakers with fewer choices and more uncertainty. That uncertainty is precisely the subject of the forthcoming installments of this series.

"Lessons Learned From a Grand American Gamble is republished with permission of Stratfor."

Officer Down

Police Officer Nathan John Van Oort, Sr.
Ohio University Police Department, Ohio
End of Watch: Saturday, November 7, 2015
Age: 53
Tour: 4 years
Badge # 17
Incident Date: 6/22/2006

Police Officer Nathan Van Oort succumbed to injuries sustained nine years earlier when he was struck by lightning while representing the Ohio University Police Department in the Special Olympics Law Enforcement Torch Run.

The group of participants had stopped at a preschool, at 28841 Chieftan Drive in Logan, and were inside a picnic shelter when the lightning strike occurred. Other officers on scene performed CPR for 20 minutes until he was stabilized enough for transport to a local hospital. Several other officers and participants were injured.

Officer Van Oort never fully recovered from his injuries and passed away as a result on November 7th, 2015.

Officer Van Oort was an Ohio National Guard veteran and had served with the Ohio University Police Department for four years. He is survived by his wife, four children, mother, and three siblings.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Nemo me impune lacessit

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

A shootout in Baton Rouge...

Gives you a great look at how fast this goes down. Scary.

Be vigilant out there.

Officer Down

Senior Patrol Officer Daniel Neil Ellis
Richmond Police Department, Kentucky
End of Watch: Friday, November 6, 2015
Age: 33
Tour: 7 years
Badge # 457
Incident Date: 11/4/2015

Senior Patrol Officer Daniel Ellis died two days after being shot while attempting to apprehend an armed robbery suspect at an apartment in the 500 block of Ballard Drive.

Multiple subjects had robbed a customer at a gas station earlier in the morning and a witness provided a vehicle description that led officers to the apartment. A male subject who answered the door denied that the robbery suspect was inside and then gave officers consent to search the apartment.

As Officer Ellis entered a back bedroom the robbery suspect, who was a parolee hiding inside, opened fire. Officer Ellis was struck in the head. His partner returned fire and wounded the subject.

Officer Ellis was taken to the University of Kentucky Hospital, where he died two days later from his wound.

Three people, including the shooter, were arrested and held in connection with the robbery and Officer Ellis' murder.

Officer Ellis had served with the Richmond Police Department for seven years. He is survived by his wife and one child.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Nemo me impune lacessit

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

Freddy Mercury's voice, pure and awesome

I've recently mentioned that in a business dominated by semi-talented prima donnas, Prince was a true artist. Here is another one. They isolated Freddy Mercury's voice and you hear him sing his signature song, We are the Champions, pure and simple. Enjoy.

The United States, Europe and Bretton Woods II, October 18, 2008

Please note. I'm posting a STRATFOR economic series this week and to set it up, I'm republishing an older article on the 1944 Bretton Woods conference.

The United States, Europe and Bretton Woods II

By George Friedman and Peter Zeihan

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and U.S. President George W. Bush met Oct. 18 to discuss the possibility of a global financial summit. The meeting ended with an American offer to host a global summit in December modeled on the 1944 Bretton Woods system that founded the modern economic system.

The Bretton Woods framework is one of the more misunderstood developments in human history. The conventional wisdom is that Bretton Woods crafted the modern international economic architecture, lashing the trading and currency systems to the gold standard to achieve global stability. To a certain degree, that is true. But the form that Bretton Woods took in the public mind is only a veneer. The real implications and meaning of Bretton Woods are a different story altogether.

Conventional Wisdom: The Depression and Bretton Woods

The origin of Bretton Woods lies in the Great Depression. As economic output dropped in the 1930s, governments worldwide adopted a swathe of protectionist, populist policies — import tariffs were particularly in vogue — that enervated international trade. In order to maintain employment, governments and firms alike encouraged ongoing production of goods even though mutual tariff walls prevented the sale of those goods abroad. As a result, prices for these goods dropped and deflation set in. Soon firms found that the prices they could reasonably charge for their goods had dropped below the costs of producing them.

The reduction in profitability led to layoffs, which reduced demand for products in general, further reducing prices. Firms went out of business en masse, workers in the millions lost their jobs, demand withered, and prices followed suit. An effort designed originally to protect jobs (the tariffs) resulted in a deep, self-reinforcing deflationary spiral, and the variety of measures adopted to combat it — the New Deal included — could not seem to right the system.

Economically, World War II was a godsend. The military effort generated demand for goods and labor. The goods part is pretty straightforward, but the labor issue is what really allowed the global economy to turn the corner. Obviously, the war effort required more workers to craft goods, whether bars of soap or aircraft carriers, but "workers" were also called upon to serve as soldiers. The war removed tens of millions of men from the labor force, shipping them off to — economically speaking — nonproductive endeavors. Sustained demand for goods combined with labor shortages raised prices, and as expectations for inflation rather than deflation set in, consumers became more willing to spend their money for fear it would be worth less in the future. The deflationary spiral was broken; supply and demand came back into balance.

Policymakers of the time realized that the prosecution of the war had suspended the depression, but few were confident that the war had actually ended the conditions that made the depression possible. So in July 1944, 730 representatives from 44 different countries converged on a small ski village in New Hampshire to cobble together a system that would prevent additional depressions and — were one to occur — come up with a means of ending it shy of depending upon a world war.

When all was said and done, the delegates agreed to a system of exchangeable currencies and broadly open rules of trade. The system would be based on the gold standard to prevent currency fluctuations, and a pair of institutions — what would become known as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank — would serve as guardians of the system's financial and fiduciary particulars.

The conventional wisdom is that Bretton Woods worked for a time, but that since the entire system was linked to gold, the limited availability of gold put an upper limit on what the new system could handle. As postwar economic activity expanded — but the supply of gold did not — that problem became so mammoth that the United States abandoned the gold standard in 1971. Most point to that period as the end of the Bretton Woods system. In fact, we are still using Bretton Woods, and while nothing that has been discussed to this point is wrong exactly, it is only part of the story.

A Deeper Understanding: World War II and Bretton Woods

Think back to July 1944. The Normandy invasion was in its first month. The United Kingdom served as the staging ground, but with London exhausted, its military commitment to the operation was modest. While the tide of the war had clearly turned, there was much slogging ahead. It had become apparent that launching the invasion of Europe — much less sustaining it — was impossible without large-scale U.S. involvement. Similarly, the balance of forces on the Eastern Front radically favored the Soviets. While the particulars were, of course, open to debate, no one was so idealistic to think that after suffering at Nazi hands, the Soviets were simply going to withdraw from territory captured on their way to Berlin.

The shape of the Cold War was already beginning to unfold. Between the United States and the Soviet Union, the rest of the modern world — namely, Europe — was going to either experience Soviet occupation or become a U.S. protectorate.

At the core of that realization were twin challenges. For the Europeans, any hope they had of rebuilding was totally dependent upon U.S. willingness to remain engaged. Issues of Soviet attack aside, the war had decimated Europe, and the damage was only becoming worse with each inch of Nazi territory the Americans or Soviets conquered. The Continental states — and even the United Kingdom — were not simply economically spent and indebted but were, to be perfectly blunt, destitute. This was not World War I, where most of the fighting had occurred along a single series of trenches. This was blitzkrieg and saturation bombings, which left the Continent in ruins, and there was almost nothing left from which to rebuild. Simply avoiding mass starvation would be a challenge, and any rebuilding effort would be utterly dependent upon U.S. financing. The Europeans were willing to accept nearly whatever was on offer.

For the United States, the issue was one of seizing a historic opportunity. Historically, the United States thought of the United Kingdom and France — with their maritime traditions — as more of a threat to U.S. interests than the largely land-based Soviet Union and Germany. Even World War I did not fully dispel this concern. (Japan, for its part, was always viewed as a hostile power.) The United States entered World War II late and the war did not occur on U.S. soil. So — uniquely among all the world's major powers of the day — U.S. infrastructure and industrial capacity would emerge from the war larger (far, far larger) than when it entered. With its traditional rivals either already greatly weakened or well on their way to being so, the United States had the opportunity to set itself up as the core of the new order.

In this, the United States faced the challenges of defending against the Soviet Union. The United States could not occupy Western Europe as it expected the Soviets to occupy Eastern Europe; it lacked the troops and was on the wrong side of the ocean. The United States had to have not just the participation of the Western Europeans in holding back the Soviet tide, it needed the Europeans to defer to American political and military demands — and to do so willingly. Considering the desperation and destitution of the Europeans, and the unprecedented and unparalleled U.S. economic strength, economic carrots were the obvious way to go.

Put another way, Bretton Woods was part of a broader American effort to extend the wartime alliance — sans the Soviets — beyond Germany's surrender. After all wars, there is the hope that alliances that have defeated a common enemy will continue to function to administer and maintain the peace. This happened at the Congress of Vienna and Versailles as well. Bretton Woods was more than an attempt to shape the global economic system, it was an effort to grow a military alliance into a broader U.S.-led and -dominated bloc to counter the Soviets.

At Bretton Woods, the United States made itself the core of the new system, agreeing to become the trading partner of first and last resort. The United States would allow Europe near tariff-free access to its markets, and turn a blind eye to Europe's own tariffs so long as they did not become too egregious — something that at least in part flew in the face of the Great Depression’s lessons. The sale of European goods in the United States would help Europe develop economically, and, in exchange, the United States would receive deference on political and military matters: NATO — the ultimate hedge against Soviet invasion — was born.

The "free world" alliance would not consist of a series of equal states. Instead, it would consist of the United States and everyone else. The "everyone else" included shattered European economies, their impoverished colonies, independent successor states and so on. The truth was that Bretton Woods was less a compact of equals than a framework for economic relations within an unequal alliance against the Soviet Union. The foundation of Bretton Woods was American economic power — and the American interest in strengthening the economies of the rest of the world to immunize them from communism and build the containment of the Soviet Union.

Almost immediately after the war, the United States began acting in ways that indicated that Bretton Woods was not — for itself at least — an economic program. When loans to fund Western Europe's redevelopment failed to stimulate growth, those loans became grants, aka the Marshall Plan. Shortly thereafter, the United States — certainly to its economic loss — almost absentmindedly extended the benefits of Bretton Woods to any state involved on the American side of the Cold War, with Japan, South Korea and Taiwan signing up as its most enthusiastic participants.

And fast-forwarding to when the world went off of the gold standard and Bretton Woods supposedly died, gold was actually replaced by the U.S. dollar. Far from dying, the political/military understanding that underpinned Bretton Woods had only become more entrenched. Whereas before, the greatest limiter was on the availability of gold, now it became — and remains — the whim of the U.S. government's monetary authorities.

Toward Bretton Woods II

For many of the states that will be attending what is already being dubbed Bretton Woods II, having this American centrality as such a key pillar of the system is the core of the problem.

The fundamental principle of Bretton Woods was national sovereignty within a framework of relationships, ultimately guaranteed not just by American political power but by American economic power. Bretton Woods was not so much a system as a reality. American economic power dwarfed the rest of the noncommunist world, and guaranteed the stability of the international financial system.

What the September financial crisis has shown is not that the basic financial system has changed, but what happens when the guarantor of the financial system itself undergoes a crisis. When the economic bubble in Japan — the world's second-largest economy — burst in 1990-1991, it did not infect the rest of the world. Neither did the East Asian crisis in 1997, nor the ruble crisis of 1998. A crisis in France or the United Kingdom would similarly remain a local one. But a crisis in the U.S. economy becomes global. The fundamental reality of Bretton Woods remains unchanged: The U.S. economy remains the largest, and dysfunctions there affect the world. That is the reality of the international system, and that is ultimately what the French call for a new Bretton Woods is about.

There has been talk of a meeting at which the United States gives up its place as the world's reserve currency and primacy of the economic system. That is not what this meeting will be about, and certainly not what the French are after. The use of the dollar as world reserve currency is not based on an aggrandizing fiat, but the reality that the dollar alone has a global presence and trust. The euro, after all, is only a decade old, and is not backed either by sovereign taxing powers or by a central bank with vast authority. The European Central Bank (ECB) certainly steadies the European financial system, but it is the sovereign countries that define economic policies. As we have seen in the recent crisis, the ECB actually lacks the authority to regulate Europe's banks. Relying on a currency that is not in the hands of a sovereign taxing power, but dependent on the political will of (so far) 15 countries with very different interests, does not make for a reliable reserve currency.

The Europeans are not looking to challenge the reality of American power, they are looking to increase the degree to which the rest of the world can influence the dynamics of the American economy, with an eye toward limiting the ability of the Americans to accidentally destabilize the international financial system again. The French in particular look at the current crisis as the result of a failure in the U.S. regulatory system.

And the Europeans certainly have a point. If fault is to be pinned, it is on the United States for letting the problem grow and grow until it triggered a liquidity crisis. The Bretton Woods institutions — specifically the IMF, which is supposed to serve the role of financial lighthouse and crisis manager — proved irrelevant to the problems the world is currently passing through. Indeed, all multinational institutions failed or, more precisely, have little to do with the financial system that was operating in 2008. The 64-year-old Bretton Woods agreement simply didn't have anything to do with the current reality.

Ultimately, the Europeans would like to see a shift in focus in the world of international economic interactions from strengthening the international trading system to controlling the international financial system. In practical terms, they want an oversight body that can guarantee that there won't be a repeat of the current crisis. This would involve everything from regulations on accounting methods, to restrictions on what can and cannot be traded and by whom (offshore financial havens and hedge funds would definitely find their worlds circumscribed), to frameworks for global interventions. The net effect would be to create an international bureaucracy to oversee global financial markets.

Fundamentally, the Europeans are not simply hoping to modernize Bretton Woods, but instead to Europeanize the American financial markets. This is ultimately not a financial question, but a political one. The French are trying to flip Bretton Woods from a system where the United States is the buttress of the international system to a situation where the United States remains the buttress but is more constrained by the broader international system. The European view is that this will help everybody. The American position is not yet framed and won't be until the new president is in office.

But it will be a very tough sell. For one, at its core the American problem is "simply" a liquidity freeze and one that is already thawing. Europe's and East Asia's recessions are bound to be deeper and longer lasting. So the United States is sure — no matter who takes over in January — to be less than keen about revamps of international processes in general. Far more important, any international system that oversees aspects of American finance would, by definition, not be under full American control, but under some sort of quasi-Brussels-like organization. And no American president is going to engage gleefully on that sort of topic.

Unless something else is on offer.

Bretton Woods was ultimately about the United States trading access to its economic might for political and military deference. The reality of American economic might remains. The question, then, is simple: What will the Europeans bring to the table with which to bargain?

"The United States, Europe and Bretton Woods II is republished with permission of Stratfor."

Officer Down

Police Officer Bryce Edward Hanes
San Bernardino Police Department, California
End of Watch: Thursday, November 5, 2015
Age: 40
Tour: 12 years
Badge # 89

Police Officer Bryce Hanes was killed when his patrol car was struck by a drunk driver at the intersection of Fourth Street and Etiwanda Avenue, in Ontario, at approximately 2:15 am.

Officer Hanes was returning to his patrol area after transporting a prisoner to the West Valley Detention Center. He was driving through the intersection when the drunk driver ran a red light and collided with his patrol car. Officer Hanes was transported to a local hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.

The was taken into custody and was charged with DUI and gross vehicular manslaughter.

Officer Hanes had served with the San Bernardino Police Department for 12 years. He is survived by his wife and three young children.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Nemo me impune lacessit

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

Real life pistol training...with real bullets...

I've done training with "blue guns", modified pistols with chalk rounds, with my rifle (unloaded and with the bolt removed) and a laser gun. But this is incredible.

New gun training program in Eastpointe uses real bullets, scenarios

It's a first of its kind shooting exercise and it's right here in metro Detroit.

EASTPOINTE, Mich. (WJBK) - Imagine experiencing first-hand what it's like to dodge bullets. Would you be ready to fight back?

A new gun training program uses real guns and real bullets to give trainees a feel for what it's like to be in a real gun fight.

"It is the next evolution of training and it's as close to real as you can possibly get," says Bill Kucyk, the owner of Action Impact Gun Ranges. Kucyk will soon roll out the new training system for both civilians and those in law enforcement. The trainees and actors use real guns loaded with real bullets.

"For me, even having a ton of shooting experience, some of it - I don't want to say goes out the window - but in a stress scenario you kind of stop thinking about all that," says gun owner Stefan Bahri. You can watch his training exercise in Randy Wimbley's video report in the video player above. Bahri was trying to get back to his car when two men confronted him and tried to pick a fight, when one of them grabbed a gun.

Those moments where the stress kicks in is what kills. Literally.

"You saw a situation in Oklahoma where an officer thought he was grabbing his Taser but instead he grabbed his gun and shot somebody," Kucyk says. "That's because that officer stressed at that point in time. So exposing officers to this, we'll get a lot of that bad stuff out of the way, we'll discover it in advance, and then we can take corrective action.

"We put (multiple) races into our scenarios and what we're trying to determine is, did you have a pre-conceived notion to shoot someone of a race simply because of their race? And if we can identify some of those biases, as you refer to them, then we can correct them."

Even though a ballistic wall separates the trainee and actors, they are still able to come face-to-face, engage one another and, if it comes to it, use their guns.

"It's one thing to stand on the range and shoot at a target, but when you're confronted with a person and your brain is going; you're thinking; you're talking; it's a whole different scenario," says Oswald Leslie of Action Impact.

FOX 2's Randy Wimbley went through three different scenarios. The first two he tried to duck behind cover when the actor went for his gun. In the third scenario, Randy drew and fired as soon as he saw him reach for it. You can watch in the video player above.

"I will say in this, in the last go-around you had a couple under your belt," said Ian Murphy, critiquing Wimbley. Murphy is a firearm instructor with Action Impact. "What I did notice was your draw was a lot faster; you were more mentally prepared."

"That's the value of this training. So that it can stress you, find a way to correct you so that in a real-life situation perhaps it will save your life," says Kucyk. "When I say I want to save lives I am not kidding. I want to save officers' lives and I want to save civilians' lives."

Kucyk says he already has several police departments here in Metro Detroit interested in this training which will be rolled out sometime this summer. Until now, the only places this training has been used was in North Carolina and Virginia with members of law enforcement and military.

Hope they send an office to Houston. I would love to go through it.

Three Stooges....or three gentlemen.

A great American success story. One of the bio's you can read says it all, "The Three Stooges: An Illustrated History, From Amalgamated Morons to American Icons." This is an awesome picture, showing them in character and out of character. It really showed when Curley Howard would let his hair grow back when the group wasn't filming.

Anyway, a look at the three men, in and out of character.

Have a great weekend!

Officer Down

Sergeant William Karl Keesee
Texas Department of Public Safety - Texas Highway Patrol, Texas
End of Watch: Thursday, October 29, 2015
Age: 49
Tour: 25 years

Sergeant Karl Keesee was killed in a single vehicle crash on US 84 approximately two miles west of Goldthwaite, Texas.

His patrol car left the roadway and overturned, causing him to suffer fatal injuries.

Sergeant Keesee had served with the Texas Highway Patrol for 25 years and was assigned to Brownwood, Region 5.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Nemo me impune lacessit

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

Obama, Trump and Executive Power

The RINO leadership (laugh) of Republican party is really not feeling good right now. They have enjoyed telling the party base over the last few elections, "Well, you didn't win, but we need to rally up for the better good and get our candidate elected..." Well, knowing their choice would be either Cruz or Trump, the Establishment was apoplectic. Lindsey Graham said choosing between Cruz and Trump was like choosing between shooting himself or poisoning himself. Well Lindsey, I could say "Well the choice has been made, we gotta rally to the candidate and get him elected..." But seeing how nauseating Graham has been over the years, I will say to the gentlemen from South Carolina, "Lindsey, it's time for you to eat your s^%$."

But another issue is coming up. Assume Trump is the president come this January. A lot of leftists who were overjoyed when B Hussein Obama ruled with "a pen and a phone" have accepted rule of decree. If President Trump starts using it against the left, we can hear the screaming now. Well this article nails it.

Don’t Like Trump? Shouldn’t Have Supported Obama

To everyone who has ever rejoiced as President Obama skirted the legislative process to deliver what you thought you wanted: It’s time to eat your words

By Kira Davis

“So true is it that men close their eyes on encroachments committed by that party to which they are attached, in the delusive hope that power, in such hands, will always be wielded against their adversaries, never against themselves.” — “The Life of George Washington,” Volume 1.


This was written in 1804 by Chief Justice John Marshall, the first George Washington biographer, about the constant coups and warring that defined the early days of our burgeoning republic. He was writing about the 1640s. I’ve been reading Marshall’s seven-volume biography for two years now (it’s a lot of old-timey language to wade through for this reality-show addict), but this passage has always stayed with me and defines my political philosophy.

Too often over the last eight years I have heard my counterparts on the other side of the aisle lament that President Obama doesn’t have enough power to make the changes they deem necessary in this country. They rejoiced when an unelected body of nine judges overturned the express will of the voters in state by state. They celebrated when Congress passed thousands of pages of “health care” legislation that no one read beforehand and that mandated Americans spend their money in a certain way or face burdensome fines.

They still express frustration that Obama has not used his executive powers to bypass Congress on gun control. They vote for politicians who insist on expanding the reach of government into our personal lives for “the greater good.” At a Hollywood fundraiser in her home, actress and professional fancy lady Gwyneth Paltrow said, “It would be wonderful if we are able to give this man all the power he needs to accomplish the things he needs to.” She was cheered for that remark, and it encapsulates what most on the American Left believe.

Woody Allen parroted the same sentiment: “It would be good…if he could be a dictator for a few years because he could do a lot of good things quickly.” Thomas Friedman of The New York Times also lamented that Obama has a pesky Constitution to deal with, but if we could be more like the Chinese we could just force everyone to do the “right thing.”

You Will Not Always Be in Power

Instead, like Marshall’s my theory has always been that my preferred administration will not always be in power. Politics is cyclical, and always has been. It is better to give the government as little power as possible so when someone I don’t like comes in he can’t use his bully pulpit to executive-order away my rights and freedoms.

Constitutional freedoms work the same for everyone regardless of who is in office, and that is a good thing.

Some of you Obama voters are downright terrified today. You’re scared that when Donald Trump wins the White House he’s going to start forcing his (so far) vague agenda down our throats. Mass deportations, border fences—some of you are even saying you fully expect him to rescind voting rights and equality measures.

Please excuse me while I scream for just a moment: THAT’S THE WHOLE FRIGGING POINT!

I have received so many threats and insults over the years simply because I am black and don’t support the first black president, because I don’t support his abuse of executive powers. I’ve tried to explain—sometimes calmly and others quite passionately—that constitutional freedoms work the same for everyone regardless of who is in office, and that is a good thing. We shouldn’t want to erode that.

But you wouldn’t listen. You called me a sellout, a porch-monkey, and a house ni**er. You called me traitor. So to everyone who has ever rejoiced as Obama and Congress skirted the legislative process to deliver what you thought you wanted: break out your forks and knives. It’s time to eat your words (and your peas).

Whatcha Gonna Do When Trump Comes for You

Hillary is probably going to be indicted during this campaign, and that will most likely prompt a Trump victory. All those executive powers you were so hot and heavy to hand over to Obama? You’ve just given Trump a license to do the same thing. You naively and tragically believed just as early settlers believed—that the laws and politics restricting the freedoms of one group would never be turned on you.

The Bible tells us there is nothing new under the sun. Ain’t that the truth?

So here you are, wailing about what hell a Trump presidency will reign down on liberty, when you yourselves are the very arbiters such bondage. You voted for it. You continue to vote for it. You elect people who openly intend to limit the decision-making of the average citizen in favor of more government power. Don’t start whining about it now that a guy you hate is at the threshold of the White House.

The Bible tells us there is nothing new under the sun. Ain’t that the truth? In 1804, Marshall perfectly described who we’ve become in modern America. I tried to warn you. I have half a mind to vote for Trump just to make sure you get what you asked for.

Liberty works the same for you as it does for me. When you limit your neighbor’s freedom in the name of “justice” or “fairness,” you’re signing the death warrant on your own. Congratulations on becoming the living embodiment of the phrase “What goes around comes around.”

I would disagree that Mrs. Bill Clinton will be indicted. If anything Obama will pardon her on the way out. However one point I've made with Obamaites over the years. When the idiot laments the Constitution is a charter of "negative rights," he shows the ignorance of the document a supposed scholar has. The point of the Constitution is to limit the power of the government. Then again, he never cared for it to begin with But the left may soon be horrified that a President Trump will use the powers he established against them. Personally I don't want the power in the hands of a single man, there is separation of power for a reason. But...couldn't have happened to nicer people.

Officer Down

Police Officer Daniel Scott Webster
Albuquerque Police Department, New Mexico
End of Watch: Thursday, October 29, 2015
Age: 47
Tour: 8 years
Badge # 749
Incident Date: 10/21/2015

Police Officer Dan Webster succumbed to gunshot wounds sustained on October 21st, 2015, while making a traffic stop.

He had stopped a motorcycle that was displaying a stolen license plate near the intersection of Central Avenue and Eubank Boulevard at approximately 8:00 pm. Officer Webster had placed one handcuff on the subject's left wrist when the man pretended to be injured by complaining that his right shoulder was hurt. The subject then reached for a concealed handgun and opened fire on him at close range. Officer Webster was struck in the face, chest, and arm.

The man, a felon with a prior manslaughter conviction, was arrested a short time later by responding officers who had contained him within a perimeter.

Officer Webster was transported to a local hospital where he remained on life support until succumbing to his wounds one week later.

Officer Webster was a U.S. Army veteran and had served with the Albuquerque Police Department for eight years.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Nemo me impune lacessit

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

LAPD is trying out a new toy.....

I could make some comments about spending limited money on flashy toys (those will come later! :<) .) but LAPD is often the test bed for new equipment. And how they are looking at a new vehicle. Coal, excuse me, electric powered.

The LAPD Could Someday Chase You Down in a Tesla

More and more electric vehicles are taking to the streets of Los Angeles, and that includes the vehicles that police the streets of Los Angeles. The LAPA is testing a Tesla Model S P85D as a high-speed pursuit vehicle, Electrek reports.

This is just a test for now. The police department has a pair of P85Ds that it's using as part of a longstanding effort to see how electric cars can integrate with the rest of the police fleet. If the LAPD decides to start driving electric, it'll be another three to five years yet. It's clear that the department is moving in that direction, though, having already investigated using electric scooters and electric motorcycles like those by Zero.

P85Ds are hot-rodded all-wheel-drive versions of the already fast Model S that can run to 60 mph in less than 3 seconds when they have "Ludicrous Mode." We're guessing the governed top speed of 155 mph will be removed for the police.

Oh, I think I see an issue or three with this:

According to Kelly Blue Book, the cost is something like 70K. That's a base model. Add on lights, sirens, radios, etc, and you're looking at minimum 5K more. In comparison the new Chevy Tahoe and Ford Explorer police vehicles are around 30K. So you at least doubling the cost.

But I'm actually wrong. Per KBB, the actual cost is:

For the high-horsepower Model S P85D, with its Ludicrous mode, you'll shell out $106,200.

My mistake. Three cars for one.

Other issues. This supposedly has a range of 250 miles. That's with a normal driver. Cops don't drive normally. We idle a lot followed by high speed and then ludicrous speed. Fact of life on the street. If you get 200 miles out of it, it will be a miracle.

Also, one vehicle is generally used for two or three shifts in a day. With a gas engine, you take five minutes to tank it up and it's ready to go. Electric engines take hours to recharge. So at best you will get two shifts and you need a break between them (e.g. day followed by night, blow off evening).

What idiots thought of this...wait, the cereal state, California. Land of Fruits, Flakes and Nuts.

Thanks Mike K for the link.

A Sovereign Citizen from the new country of Kanata....

These idiots are at best ridicules, but they can also be very dangerous. The man went through the gamut of crap, "I'm not subject to your laws, I'm a free man of the land, I have legal paperwork I'm serving you with..." Fortunately this didn't get bad.

In case you missed it, Canada is dissolved, Kanata has replaced it, no allegiance in Her Majesty the Queen.

Be safe out there guys!

Officer Down

Deputy Constable Jeffrey Emmons Radford
Bell County Constable's Office - Precinct 3, Texas
End of Watch: Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Age: 69
Tour: 5 years

Deputy Constable Jeffrey Radford was killed in a vehicle crash at the intersection of Lucius McCelvey Drive and NW HK Dodgen Loop, in Temple, shortly before 7:00 pm.

He was returning to Temple after serving papers in Troy, Texas, when his department vehicle collided with another car. He was transported to a local hospital where he succumbed to his injuries. The two occupants of the other vehicle were injured.

Deputy Radford had served with the Bell County Precinct 3 Constable's Office for two years.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Nemo me impune lacessit

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

I've posted on my contempt for the State Attorney Marilyn Mosby in Baltimore. She has used the unfortunate death of a lifetime criminal for her political ambitions, the fact it will likely lead to riots when (presumably) the innocent officers are found not guilty. Now this is interesting. When the law doesn't fit your political ambitions, you simply test novel legal theory.

Prosecutors to test novel legal theory in trial of officer charged in Freddie Gray case

Upcoming trial in Freddie Gray case will turn focus from van ride to his arrest, testing novel legal theory.

Prosecutors are expected to test a novel legal theory this week in the trial of a police officer charged in the arrest and death of Freddie Gray — that the officer didn't have the authority to detain him and therefore committed an assault by putting him in handcuffs.

The allegation could have widespread implications for policing in Baltimore and Maryland. Hundreds of detainees in the city are released every year after being arrested without being charged.

Officer Edward M. Nero's defense team argues that police shouldn't be second-guessed — and face criminal charges — when they carry out their duties in good faith, while prosecutors say officers should face consequences when their actions turn out to be wrong, and the consequences are so catastrophic.

By taking a chance with this kind of case, legal experts said, Baltimore's State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby must believe she is correctly interpreting the law and has the political will.


"Is it a gutsy theory? Yes. Do I think most prosecutors would have brought charges on this theory? Probably not," said Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor who is now a Georgetown University law professor. "But these are extraordinary times, and Baltimore is a city where a lot of the usual political dynamics don't apply."...

...The first trial in the Gray case — against Officer William Porter, who checked on Gray during his transport and faces charges including involuntary manslaughter — ended in a hung jury and mistrial in December.

The second trial will turn the focus away from Gray's fatal spinal injuries, which the medical examiner found were sustained in the back of a police transport van, to whether officers committed a crime when they pursued and arrested him on April 12, 2015.

It's also expected to lead to the first verdict. Nero is likely to request a bench trial, according to legal observers, so that Judge Barry Williams would render the verdict, not a jury.

The reckless endangerment charge relates to Gray's being loaded into a van without being restrained by a seat belt. Prosecutors said the failure of officers, including Nero, to do so "not only knowingly risked injury or death to Mr. Gray, but actually resulted in it."

Nero's defense attorneys sought to have the charges dismissed, saying the officers had legal justification to pursue Gray as he ran unprovoked through the area around Gilmor Homes, and had probable cause to arrest him after finding a knife clipped to his belt. In filing charges, prosecutors said the knife was legal.

Nero's attorneys, Marc Zayon and Allison Levine, wrote in a recent court filing that they couldn't locate a "single case" in which an officer had been criminally charged with assault on the basis that an arrest was made without probable cause...

I remember during the beginning of this adventure she came out and said, "The knife wasn't illegal so they had no reason to arrest them...", but she would not present the knife to the defense for examination. And she and her office argued with a judge that they should not be allowed to. Slight problem, she has to by a minor document called the Constitution of the United States.

Gee, you think this woman is grasping at straws. I will really enjoy when this puts more egg on her face. Good riddance to bad garbage.

Officer Down

Detective Randolph A. Holder
New York City Police DepartmenT
End of Watch: Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Age: 33
Tour: 5 years
Badge # 13340

Police Officer Randolph Holder was shot and killed while pursuing an armed male subject.

He and his partner were on patrol in the East Harlem section of Manhattan when they responded to a call of shots fired. The officers spoke to a victim who informed them that one of the males who had been firing a gun had also robbed him at gunpoint and fled on a bicycle. The officers canvassed the area for the suspect and located him approximately 18 blocks away near a footbridge over Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive at 120th Street.

Officer Holder and his partner pursued the suspect, who engaged the officers in a gun battle. Officer Holder was struck in the head in the exchange of gunfire. He was transported to Harlem Hospital where he later died from his wound.

The suspect, who had been wounded in the exchange of gunfire, was located several blocks away by responding officers and taken into custody.

Officer Holder had served with the New York City Police Department for five years and was assigned to Police Service Area 5. Officer Holder's father and grandfather served as police officers in his native Guyana.

Officer Holder was posthumously promoted to the rank of Detective.

Rest in Peace Bro…We Got The Watch

Nemo me impune lacessit

Day is done, Gone the sun, From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh. 

How not to handle a publicity act...

In February many people were outraged by Beyonce and her half-time show during the Super Bowl. Soon afterwards police agencies reported that officers refused to work her concerts because of her stated hostility to law enforcement. I more than agree with that. I may not agree with what you believe but I'll defend to the death your right to say it. That being said, I will not go out of the way to assist you by working a job off duty at your concert. But I believe police organizations openly announcing their resistance to her concerts is the wrong way to go. As Brendan Behan said, "There is no such thing as bad publicity, except your own obituary."

Beyonce was here in Houston the past Saturday and the Coalition of Police and Sheriffs (COPS) protested the event.

Beyoncé concert inspires dueling demonstrations

Two opposing demonstrations outside NRG Stadium provided fans with pre-concert activity well before Beyoncé Knowles Carter took the stage for her Formation World Tour Saturday night...

...Nation of Islam members, dressed in suits and bowties, formed a couple of rows about eight people deep, arms clasped either in front or behind their backs. They gathered in response to another demonstration, set to take place an hour later.

The Coalition of Police and Sheriffs — known as COPS — held a news conference to challenge the pop priestess’ Black Lives Matter, Black Panther and other political themes they considered “anti-police” during her halftime Super Bowl performance in February. Dressed in blue “Police Lives Matter” T-shirts, they planned to shine a thin blue light after sunset toward the stadium.

Boycott urged

Leaders of law enforcement organizations in Miami, New York and other cities urged officers nationwide to boycott working security for Beyoncé when the tour launched in April.

In response to the COPS demonstration, members of the Nation of Islam gathered and asked her fans — collectively called “The Beyhive” — to swarm with them in counterprotest.

“Beyoncé is Houston’s treasure to the world,” said Robert S. Muhammad, an activist in Houston and southwest regional representative for the Nation of Islam. “We don’t have to agree with everything she does, but we do agree that she deserves in her hometown to be received as the ‘Queen Bey’ that she is, and we’re just part of the Bey-hive.”

Muhammad said the organization has dispatched its men — called the Fruit of Islam — to protect Beyoncé as her Formation tour travels across the nation.

He said the show of support also reinforces the message that the Nation of Islam will not “allow uniformed, armed members of law enforcement to intimidate our cultural icons.”

Muhammad said the Super Bowl performance was pro-black and not anti-police...

...About 25 people gathered at the COPS demonstration 1.5 miles away. Their demonstration stayed a distance from the concert for a reason, COPS president Tony Ragsdale said.

“We didn’t want to make anything offensive,” Rags-dale said. “We didn’t want to do anything that might bring out any type of clash between our organization or any others.”

To borrow the phrase from Dr Evil, Riiiight. Her show was anti-police and she knew everything she did was going to stir up a storm, a lot of free publicity for her upcoming tour. No argument, she's smart enough use her assets to make herself the subject of the news.

While I agree with the view of COPS, I would respectfully suggest we take a tip from NYPD. After their mayor showed his anti-police attitude, the officers simply turned their back on him. We should simply quietly decline to take any offered extra employment at her concerts. If it's an assigned duty, that's different, perform your assignment. She has the right to her opinion, but she doesn't have the right to employ police officers if they don't want to take the money.

Be safe friends.

The Orange Menace...

I've often called Saturday Night Live one of my guilty pleasures, although I rarely watch more than 15 minutes an episode. I normally look at the opening, maybe the musical guest and the Weekend Update. And with Trump securing the Republican nomination, they hit it out of the part with the first 50 seconds.

The essence of great comedy is the element of truth....