Saturday updates

Gonna dredge up a couple of old ones.  Remember Kim Gardner? She was the over-zealous St. Louis prosecutor (of the George Soros kind) who effectively got Bo Greitens removed from office. (Well, that, and married Bo not keeping it in his pants.)

In 2018, she charged former Gov. Eric Greitens, then a rising star in GOP politics, with felony invasion of privacy, accusing him of taking a compromising photo of a woman during an affair. The charge was eventually dropped. Greitens resigned in June 2018.

Scrutiny of the case led to the conviction of Gardner’s investigator, and Gardner received a written reprimand from the Missouri Supreme Court for issues with how documents in the case were handled.

That reprimand, which spared her law license, also carried a fine of $750 and additional costs of $4,254. Her attorney at the time said any mistakes were unintentional, the result of a heavy workload during the Greitens investigation.

Problems then arose, the diversion agreement said, because Gardner directed her employees to issue a series of checks for the $5,004 from a contingent fund in the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office to reimburse her, although she wasn’t entitled to the additional compensation. The city gets federal funds, which is how the U.S. attorney’s office got involved.  AP

You can get away with an amazing amount of public corruption (especially if there is a D after your name) but misusing federal funds is only for Congresscritters, lady. She has to pay all the money back and follow the (lenient) rules of the pretrial diversion agreement, but gets to keep her lawer’s ticket. Expect to see her back, like a bad penny.

Moving back to Gaza – as you may recall that at the end of the famous “Pier One fiasco”, costing us millions with effectively no help to the Gazans, the U.S. Army boats had to be ferried inside larger ships to the US. Not that they shouldn’t have been able to make the trip under their own power, but because they were unseaworthy. Well, seems after inspection almost  NONE of the Army’s floatie thingies are ready for war.

The Government Accountability Office released a report on Wednesday that concluded there are “wide-ranging” issues facing Army watercraft, which limit the Army’s ability “to meet mission requirements in the Indo-Pacific theater where the need for Army watercraft is most pronounced.”

Despite Army policy requiring the vessels to be at least at a 90% mission capable rate — meaning the vessels are ready to perform their mission — the boats currently have a less than 40% capable rate this year. Overall, the fleet of watercraft has dropped by nearly half since 2018, going from 134 vessels to 70 as of May this year, in part due to divestment of vessels in 2018 and 2019.

Was 134, dropped to 60, and still only 24 might be OK …if we invade Rhode Island.

“Army officials stated that these low mission capable rates, along with the smaller size of the watercraft fleet after divestment, hinder operational readiness and the ability to meet mission requirement,” the report said.   CNN

In closing, going back to an even earlier fiasco, we hit the Afghan clusterfuck withdrawal. One of the more widely reported items at the time was that moneygrubbing mercenaries were charging outrageous prices to people trying to leave, the black-hearted bastards. Except, the only named ONE group – who denies it and is suing CNN for libel.

…Marquardt, who said “desperate Afghans are being exploited” and need to pay “exorbitant, often impossible amounts” to flee the country. Marquardt then singled out Young, putting a picture of his face on the screen and saying his company was asking for $75,000 to transport a vehicle of passengers to Pakistan or $14,500 per person to end up in the United Arab Emirates.

“Prices well beyond the reach of most Afghans,” Marquardt told viewers.

No other people or companies were named other than Young, who alleged that CNN, using the terms “black market,” “exploit” and “exorbitant,” inaccurately painted him as a bad actor preying on desperate people.

Zachary Young, a Navy vet, accuses CNN of libeling him and his company, Nemex Enterprises Inc., and ruining their business.

CNN lawyers argued that there are multiple definitions of this term “black market,” and Young “did not know if he was operating legally or illegally, and that his actions implicated Taliban or Sharia law violations.”

Sharia law as a DEFENSE? Uh, no… and the judge agrees.

The judge ruled that “Young did not act criminally or illegally,” and “to the extent that Defendants argue Taliban or Sharia law may have been violated, this is a bridge too far.”

“First, there is nothing in the record to suggest that any Taliban or Sharia law which would restrict the movement of persons (especially women) within or out of Afghanistan was properly enacted, adopted or recognized law to even suggest that evacuating individuals from Afghanistan was a criminal or illegal activity. In fact, the only information contained in the record suggests that formal adoption of any rules restricting travel within or out of Afghanistan did not occur until 2024 — almost three years after the publications in this case,” the judge ruled.Fox News

Trial begins January 6. I know who I am rooting for.

Category: Afghanistan, Army, Gaza 2023, Politics