Still Free

Yeah, Mr. Smiley. Made it through the entire Trump presidency without being enslaved. Imagine that.

Thursday, March 16, 2023

Here Comes "Fed Coin"

 I haven't said much about the recent bank failures. Yes, failureS for those not paying attention. But the word on the street is Fed Coin is coming


The system will allow bill payments, money transfers such as paychecks and disbursements from the government, as well as a host of other consumer activities to move more rapidly and at lower cost, according to the program’s goals.

You do realize that your credit card and debit card do the same thing. It's not like they found a new way to move electrons faster. So no, it's not going to be faster. The only reason why there is a pause between a charge and it clearing your account is due to the clearing house middle men.

So the claims here have nothing to do with speed or cost.

"Institutions that participate in the program will have seven-day, 24-hour access, as opposed to a system currently in place that closes on weekends."

 Does your credit card or debit card stop working on weekends?

Some Fed officials say the program even could supplant the need for a central bank digital currency.

So it will walk like a duck, quack like a duck and look like a duck but we'll call it something else.

Now go back and read my post on programmable money

Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Trespassing The Shaman Pt 2

 In my last post about The Shaman I stipulated that the case against him rested upon whether he knew he wasn't allowed on the property. Trespassing requires that the person know they are not to be on a location. This was the argument used successfully to convict the men who shot Arbery in Georgia. I said:

Well that is a valid question. We know that in certain areas and certain points protestors were *let into the building*. I do not know if Shaman was a part of the crowd that met police resistance or if he was one of those who was let in.

 

Well know the Washington Post has released video showing that The Shaman was a part of a group who overran Capital Police:

As you can see, the police were keeping people from entering. The crowd overran the "blockade' and stormed the building. Shaman was in that initial crowd. Hence; it cannot be said that he wasn't aware of not being allowed in.  Because of this, it doesn't matter that he was shown around the building. He was still trespassing. 

Now you could argue that after entering he was made to believe he was not trespassing. That would be a lift for his defense attorneys. So far I have not seen any evidence of such a claim.  Certainly a trespass can be recinded at any time by the property owner or agent thereof. So it's not beyond reasonable doubt that after his clear trespass he came to the belief that it was "OK" for him to remain on premises. To that end the ball is and was in his lawyer's court to find those officers, depose them and find out if they did indeed give Shaman the impression that he was no longer considered trespassed.

All that said, I still do not think his 4 year sentance is anywhere near appropriate and I would argue it is a clear violation of the "cruel and unusual punishment" prohibition in the US Constitution.

Thursday, March 09, 2023

How Dare They Buy Cars!

 I read this piece on the ridiculous rent increases happening in Kingston NY. I was struck by the comments of one of the landlords:

“My tenants are driving Teslas, BMWs, Volvo XC90s,” he says. “I’m driving a 20-plus-year-old Jeep with 400,000 miles.” And while he concedes the price of apartments “might be a hardship” for some renters, “if you’re a relatively young and mobile person, I don’t think it’s a big deal.”

 Your tenants are driving BMWs? How is that any of your business? Secondly that implies that this landlord thinks he should have the care note money rather than BMW AG. 

That's a lot of nerve.  I personally own 2 BMWs. I have lived FAR below my means for most of my life. I COULD pay far more in rent than I do and live elsewhere, particularly the high rises that are near me but WHY should I?

Why should I give some landlord 50% or more of my income?

This is why I don't get why people live in NYC with the ridiculous rents there. Why people shack up with 2,3, 4 people in order to "afford" rent. 

It is some huge sense of entitlement to look at what people have and think 'They should be paying me instead."

"Marie Talaska, a 69-year-old retiree, joined after receiving a 30% rent increase that meant she wouldn’t have enough money for her blood pressure medication."

30% rent increase. 

"The pair also promised big upgrades, and claimed existing tenants would see “very very minimal increases” in rent. But they sold a very different story to investors. In its fundraising materials, Aker boasted of plans to hike rents at Stony Run as much as $428 over five years, before selling the buildings with “meat on the bone” – meaning room to push rents even higher."

Meat on the bones as in:

The largest of those was an ageing development called Stony Run – E&M paid $28m in 2019 for its 267 units, including Treasure’s...

Then, in 2021, it sold Stony Run and three other Kingston complexes to a startup called Aker, which paid $81m for the portfolio, netting E&M a quick $26m profit.

Not sure how that's only a 26m profit but OK. That's double the layout from 2019.

Exactly what's the justification for a 15-30% rent increase with resale values like that?

Look. Let's take rent at $1000 a month for easy math. If every unit is rented (doesn't happen but again, easy math) then the owner is getting $267,000 each month and $3.2 million each year.

That's not profitable? OK. Then how did they purchase the units in the first place? Where did THAT money come from? A loan you say? Fine, what was the collateral?  You think a bank lent them the money without seeing that these people run a profitable venture elsewhere?

Sure repairs and maintenance costs money. I've watched enough flip shows to know that those kinds of layouts, when done professionally and properly last for years and that money is well recouped.

Wednesday, March 08, 2023

$24/Hour Min Pay?

 I was pretty shocked when I read this:


$24/hour minimum for delivery work?

Really?

that's a $50k a year job before taxes working an 8 hour day, 5 days a week. For totally *unskilled* labour.

Really?

I didn't make that on my first job (many decades ago) and I was *skilled* labour.

If totally *unskilled* labour is to cost $50k/year who in their right mind who has skills is accepting anything close to that?

A heckler named Octavio López, who identified himself as a delivery worker of more than 10 years, derailed the event, shouting down leaders and casting blame on them for not securing a higher minimum pay rate casting them as “farsantes” – phonies.

“I wanted $30 an hour, too,” he said at one point, in Spanish. “You all lied to us.”

This man wanted $60k/year before taxes to do deliveries? 

Really?

And who is doing deliveries for 10 years for a business they don't own?

I'm a mean mofo. If that kind of demand came at me from the government, I'd check my bank account and then I'd shut my business down the next day and enjoy retirement. You ant $60k/ year you go to HVAC or Auto-mechanic school and pick up a skilled trade.

On the flip side:

Workers have long maintained they toil punishingly long shifts for what amounts to very little pay. One worker who spoke with THE CITY last year said she earned as little as $45 in take-home pay after a 10-hour shift.


First: Is this person an illegal alien?

Second: $45 for a 10 hour shift is $4.50/hr. That's not even minimum wage. Again, is this an illegal alien?
If this is NOT an illegal alien did they not look at the math of what they signed up for to realize they would be making $4.50 an hour? 

Lastly, why is a city government in a so called capitalist country setting wages for various industries? Nobody has to work delivery. Certainly not for $4.50/hr. If these places/companies cannot afford to break off minimum wage to their delivery people then their business model is all wrong and/or they are a vampire middle-man that needs to be eliminated.
 


Tresspassing The Shaman

 I saw the video on Tucker showing the Capitol Police "escorting" The Shaman around the Capitol building. I saw the commentary that said that the video was exculpatory and I read statements from the DC police saying that it generally was not. What follows are a few thoughts about how it could possibly be a tresspass.

If you recall when Arbery was shot in Georgia that people went out of their way to point out that Arbery could NOT have been trespassing because nobody told him that he was not allowed in the property. Due to that, any attempts to seize him amounted to kidnapping. 

With that in mind we have to ask the DC police if they ever *told* Shaman that he was trespassing. If he was never informed that he was to leave [now] then it can be argued, just like in the case of Arbery that he was NOT trespassing. Indeed if he was not told AND he was "escorted" around the building as the video showed, then he committed no crime and should never have been arrested, tried and imprisoned. 

This is settled law. Ask any card counter and they will tell you that a trespass has not happened unless you've been told/asked to leave. 

"Ahh..." you say. "How did he get into the building?" 

Well that is a valid question. We know that in certain areas and certain points protestors were *let into the building*. I do not know if Shaman was a part of the crowd that met police resistance or if he was one of those who was let in. If he was a part of the latter, it *cannot* be argued that he knew that he was "trespassing". Remember that the Capitol is a pubic building. While some areas may be "off limits" access to the building is *not* closed to the public. There are regular protests and confrontations with members of congress. Therefore, the mere presence of a person in that building is *not* evidence of a crime.

With this in mind, a fair jury could have very well found Shaman not-guilty since by law they are supposed to weigh any doubt *in favor of the defendant*.

Alternately the situation could have been that Shaman entered the building in one of the waves that was let in. As he and others were wandering about trying to find the chambers, he ran across some other police. Hypothetically they said to him something along the lines of:

"You can't be in here."

If that happened then Shaman was obliged to leave. The Capitol Police are empowered agents and can declare a person trespassing. If Shaman said anything to the effect of "I'm not going anywhere" then at that moment he is trespassing. It doesn't matter if he was shown around the building. He was asked to leave by an appointed agent and refused. 

That doesn't make him a violent insurrectionist.

It makes him liable for a misdemeanor trespass prosecution. That is all.

Again, going back to the card counter comparison. If the counter is asked to leave (trespassed) they don't have the option to say "well I'mma play the slot machines on the other side of the casino first..."

The last alternative (assuming he didn't breech barriers) is that he was wandering around, again looking for the chambers and encountered the police we see in the video. If they never said anything to the effect of "you can't be here, please leave now", then Shaman has no reason to believe he is trespassing and legally is not. Again, as established by law, you cannot be trespassing unless you have been informed you cannot be in a location.

If those police failed to "trespass" Shaman AND "escorted" him around, de-escalation technique or not, then there is no crime, the video is 100% exculpatory, Shaman should be freed immediately and sue for malicious prosecution and possible Civil Rights violations. If that video wasn't turned over to his lawyer and a jury was unable to view it, I believe there are criminal penalties in play.

So those are the possible scenarios I gather from the video. There are significant bits of information missing to make any one of them THE explanation. If any reader has that information please send along.



Saturday, March 04, 2023

Time To Deploy The New Variant

 I lot of people caught flack for calling the Pandemic the "Plandemic". It would seem that they were more correct than we knew.



I'll admit that when I saw the screenshots of the messages I thought that no way this isn't fake. I mean who would be dumb enough to lay the plan out in a retrievable message?

Matt Hancock wanted to “deploy” a new Covid variant to “frighten the pants off” the public and ensure they complied with lockdown, leaked messages seen by The Telegraph have revealed.

The Lockdown Files – more than 100,000 WhatsApp messages sent between ministers, officials and others – show how the Government used scare tactics to force compliance and push through lockdowns.

The comment suggested that they believed the strain could be helpful in preparing the ground for a future lockdown and tougher restrictions in the run-up to Christmas 2020.

Mr Hancock then replied: “We frighten the pants off everyone with the new strain.”

Mr Poole agreed, saying: “Yep that’s what will get proper bahviour [sic] change.”

 "The proper bahavior change."

So when we say that the entire event was a means to get the masses "under control" it was not a conspiracy theory. 

The larger looming question is the "when do we deploy the new variant" question.

Exactly how would this person know about a "new variant" and why would he be under the impression that the government (or whatever agent) could and would release it upon receiving orders?

Recall that when Omicron came out many observers said that it was so differnent that it was highly unlikely to have been a "natural mutation". 

What did they know and when did they know it?

Friday, March 03, 2023

Garveys Ghost TV 3-3-2023: Statistics and Stereotypes

Rumble

Bitchute

Today we delve into NYPD crime statistics. Some o' yall are not gonna like this one.