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Via Hot Air:

It’s not the first time that Jonathan Gruber’s past remarks on ObamaCare have come back to bite him, but perhaps it’s the most honest assessment of the process that produced the bill he both helped create and advocated. Last July, as a federal appeals court mulled over the text and intent of the subsidy structure, a 2012 video emerged in which Gruber insisted that the limitation of tax credits was intended to force states into supporting ObamaCare — the exact opposite of what the Obama administration argued in Halbig. Gruber later called that a “speak-o,” to the amusement of many.

In a video from 2013 unearthed by the Daily Signal, Gruber at least avoids undermining the legal defense of ObamaCare. Instead, Gruber undermines the political defense of it by depicting Democrats as intentionally dishonest about the bill during its drafting to snooker the CBO, and laughs at the “stupidity of the American voter” while declaring that he’s all about the ends rather than the means:

Here’s the important thing to remember. Gruber isn’t talking about fooling Republicans, or conservatives. There was simply no way that was going to happen. Virtually every prediction the political right made about Obamacare has come to pass, in many cases to an extent worse than predicted.

The key thing is, when Gruber is bragging about deceiving voters, he is talking about the Democratic party’s own base. Those are the people Pelosi and Reid needed on board to secure passage of PPACA. Recall that not a single Republican voted for this monstrosity. Therefore, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that Gruber is proud that he and fellow travellers were able to snooker low information Democratic constituencies. The contempt the left has for its own coalition is stunning.

Make sure to share this with your friends who vote Democrat. Let them know how their own party sees them- too stupid to know what’s good for them.

The first time I wrote about Alstory Simon, then a Milwaukee north sider, was in 1999, right after he confessed to a double murder in Chicago.

Simon’s shocking admission — not to police but to an investigator working for Northwestern University’s Innocence Project — led to the release and pardon of a man on death row for the crime, and ultimately to the death penalty being abolished in Illinois.

Two years later, I wrote about Simon again. This time he had reached out to me from prison to say the confession and subsequent guilty plea were involuntary. He insisted he was innocent, as do most inmates who send letters to reporters from prison.

My column was not sympathetic. His confession was right there on videotape for everyone to see, including the detail that he had “busted off about six rounds.”

Last week, Simon walked out of prison a free man after Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez announced that her office, after a yearlong investigation, was vacating the charges against him and ending his 37-year sentence.

The investigation by the Innocence Project, she said, “involved a series of alarming tactics that were not only coercive and absolutely unacceptable by law enforcement standards, they were potentially in violation of Mr. Simon’s constitutionally protected rights.”

The truth took 15 years to come out. That’s 15 years that Simon, now 64, spent behind bars.

via Jim Stingl – Duped by Innocence Project, Milwaukee man now free.

The Innocence Project has long made a staple argument that many confessions to the police were coerced, and not truly voluntary.

And they were right! How do we know? Because they used the same coersion and duplicity to send an innocent man to jail for many years. Not because they cared for justice, but because they loathed the very concept of capital punishment.

I am sympathetic to the argument that the implementation of the death penalty in prosecutions, particularly in Illinois, is problematical. But I’m also in favor of the death penalty as the ultimate societal sanction. But I’m not so committed to it as to be willing to ruin the life of an innocent to spare a (likely) guilty.

Unfortunately, as with so many progressive projects, the achievement of the political goal is far more important than the process by which it is achieved.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

10/3/2014 – HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. — Holloman Air Force Base is home to the two primary Flight Training Units for MQ-9 Reaper pilots and sensor operators. With Remotely Piloted Aircraft on the forefront of our conflicts abroad, ensuring morale and the success of their training mission is more critical now than ever. To bolster camaraderie and further training consistency among their students, the 9th and 29th Attack Squadrons collaborated through a series of friendly challenges, ultimately culminating in the signing of an armistice to signify the unity of their mission.

“We wanted to ensure that the two squadrons were as aligned as possible,” explained Lt. Col. Steven Beattie, 29th Attack Squadron commander. “So I met with the commander of the 9th to come up with a way to maintain our own separate personalities and character while still boosting morale and camaraderie.”

via Reaper squadron armistice at Holloman AFB.

It’s a typical PAO fluff story. Don’t even bother clicking through. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a nugget of interesting information.

The MQ-9 Reaper is the bigger, badder brother of the MQ-1 Predator drone.

And of course, the Air Force operates aircraft in squadrons. What’s caught my eye is the *type* of squadron. In spite of being heavily armed, the Reaper is really more of a surveillance platform than anything else.

But the squadrons the Reaper operators are in are Attack squadrons. I glossed over that on my first read. There was a time when the Navy had dozens of attack squadrons.

But thinking on it, I don’t know that the Air Force has *ever* had attack squadrons. The old Army Air Corps, and maybe the Army Air Forces had them. But in the Air Force, manned aircraft assigned to the attack mission were in Fighter, Fighter-Bomber, and Tactical Fighter squadrons and wings.

As I said, with the Reaper primarily an Intelligence, Reconnaissance and Surveillance asset, you’d expect them to be in Reconnaissance squadrons. But I guess the Air Force wanted to distinguish them a touch from that staid image.

I’m a little annoyed I didn’t manage to get any pics of the actual fortifications at Fort Rosecrans today. Almost from the day of its discovery by the Spanish, Point Loma has been recognized at the key terrain guarding the mouth of San Diego harbor, and fortifications have been there almost ever since. Ft. Rosecrans was one of the longest serving Endicott period coastal artillery posts. Today, the fort is home to Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery, and a portion of Point Loma Naval Base.

During World War II, the post underwent massive expansion, with additional gun batteries being added (though they were never fired in anger) and a large building program. Many of the “temporary” World War II barracks are still in use today by the Navy, not as barracks, but as office spaces.

Sorry for the terrible video, but here are some of the World War II era buildings.