This thing about the FAA closing airspace around El Paso and parts of New Mexico, for a week on pain of pain sounds batshit crazy until you remember that it's just across the border from Ciudad Juárez in Mexico.
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This thing about the FAA closing airspace around El Paso and parts of New Mexico, for a week on pain of pain sounds batshit crazy until you remember that it's just across the border from Ciudad Juárez in Mexico.
The Trumpzilla is about to go on a rampage in Mexico, isn't he.
@cstross my guess is that it's another attempt at distracting from the Epstein files.
Hope everyone stays safe there.
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This thing about the FAA closing airspace around El Paso and parts of New Mexico, for a week on pain of pain sounds batshit crazy until you remember that it's just across the border from Ciudad Juárez in Mexico.
The Trumpzilla is about to go on a rampage in Mexico, isn't he.
I was gonna say "No, because that telegraphs his actions to whomever in Mexico is the target, and only a stupid person would do that."
Then... "stupid"... ok, you may have a point.
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This thing about the FAA closing airspace around El Paso and parts of New Mexico, for a week on pain of pain sounds batshit crazy until you remember that it's just across the border from Ciudad Juárez in Mexico.
The Trumpzilla is about to go on a rampage in Mexico, isn't he.
@cstross A now 23 year old story from a friend of mine.
She worked Sector ATC for the sector of Minnesota, the Dakotas, Wisconsin, etc. Apparently, when Mr. Undisclosed Location (whom you've lovingly satirized) went pheasant hunting in either Dakota they put up a large NOTAM. One evening, a tiny civilian plane using VFR puttered into the zone. As they're VFR they don't need a radio, so they couldn't be warned off.
So the military advisor in the Sector said "mine," and scrambled a pair of F16s to do fly-bys. The fighter-jocks would whoosh by just over the cesna-or-something and drop altitude right as they pass, which yanked the maybe-cesna down 10-15 feet.
Repeat.
Plane turned around.
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This thing about the FAA closing airspace around El Paso and parts of New Mexico, for a week on pain of pain sounds batshit crazy until you remember that it's just across the border from Ciudad Juárez in Mexico.
The Trumpzilla is about to go on a rampage in Mexico, isn't he.
@cstross I have the hypothesis that it's designed to minimize airborne witnesses. Maybe something is happening on Castner Range.
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@cstross
He wants a war.Of COURSE he wants a war.
The Iranian government has cracked down and is now a hard target (again).
Wise heads at the Pentagon probably looked at Canada's proposed resistance plan, shat a brick, and said "nope" (to going up against NATO-spec Taliban style resistance in the deep freeze with widespread popular support). Greenland is stupidly hard to get to, Venezuela's already done, so that leaves the Mexican cartels (who nobody loves).
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This thing about the FAA closing airspace around El Paso and parts of New Mexico, for a week on pain of pain sounds batshit crazy until you remember that it's just across the border from Ciudad Juárez in Mexico.
The Trumpzilla is about to go on a rampage in Mexico, isn't he.
@cstross There's sort of four possibilities.
Someone is doing something at White Sands (missile range, just north of El Paso) and wants to make completely sure nobody gets a video record out an airliner window.
Someone in the admin wants to feel important.
Someone intends to use the airport for non-commercial purposes; load up Fort Bliss, load up the "East Montana" ICE concentration camp there, etc.
Someone has been disinformed and is (over?) reacting.
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@cstross There's sort of four possibilities.
Someone is doing something at White Sands (missile range, just north of El Paso) and wants to make completely sure nobody gets a video record out an airliner window.
Someone in the admin wants to feel important.
Someone intends to use the airport for non-commercial purposes; load up Fort Bliss, load up the "East Montana" ICE concentration camp there, etc.
Someone has been disinformed and is (over?) reacting.
@graydon Unlike Reagan Trump doesn't have a court astrologer so I think we can cross that option off the list. Probably. Maybe?
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This thing about the FAA closing airspace around El Paso and parts of New Mexico, for a week on pain of pain sounds batshit crazy until you remember that it's just across the border from Ciudad Juárez in Mexico.
The Trumpzilla is about to go on a rampage in Mexico, isn't he.
@cstross JFC this is truly a nightmare.
You want to go after "the source" of the drug problem.... go after billionaires and wealth in equality. Take out all 758 of those fuckers.
But it's not about drugs. Or even power. It's about an island of murdered children and sulphuric acid baths. WW3 instead of justice. Sounds about right.
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@cstross There's sort of four possibilities.
Someone is doing something at White Sands (missile range, just north of El Paso) and wants to make completely sure nobody gets a video record out an airliner window.
Someone in the admin wants to feel important.
Someone intends to use the airport for non-commercial purposes; load up Fort Bliss, load up the "East Montana" ICE concentration camp there, etc.
Someone has been disinformed and is (over?) reacting.
@cstross I don't think we have enough information to even suggest which is might be and I'd be loathe to avoid option five, which is "someone wants us to look at El Paso and not $OTHER_LOCATION".
I would right now assume Option Five; we're being disinformed. I'd put "you call that succession planning?" at the top of the list for why, but dying mad king, ongoing courtier power grabs, damaging revelations, etc. It could be nigh-anything. (It could be someone pranking Ted Cruz.)
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@cstross I don't think we have enough information to even suggest which is might be and I'd be loathe to avoid option five, which is "someone wants us to look at El Paso and not $OTHER_LOCATION".
I would right now assume Option Five; we're being disinformed. I'd put "you call that succession planning?" at the top of the list for why, but dying mad king, ongoing courtier power grabs, damaging revelations, etc. It could be nigh-anything. (It could be someone pranking Ted Cruz.)
@graydon It's a distraction from Epstein Island, sure. And the 3 million odd Epstein files that *haven't* been released. Given the shit in the files that *were* dumped, I can't to imagine what worse things are lurking in them.
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@graydon Unlike Reagan Trump doesn't have a court astrologer so I think we can cross that option off the list. Probably. Maybe?
@cstross I expect it's from the relatively short list of courtiers with "speaks with master's voice" tokens for anything complicated happening now.
We can't rule out, I dunno, "Miller does peyote" as an input for strategic planning and operational decisions.
I really feel for the folks trying to produce intelligence assessments about American intentions. You always have to allow for world view but once you have to allow for "despises quantitative analysis" and "formally psychotic", good luck.
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@graydon It's a distraction from Epstein Island, sure. And the 3 million odd Epstein files that *haven't* been released. Given the shit in the files that *were* dumped, I can't to imagine what worse things are lurking in them.
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This thing about the FAA closing airspace around El Paso and parts of New Mexico, for a week on pain of pain sounds batshit crazy until you remember that it's just across the border from Ciudad Juárez in Mexico.
The Trumpzilla is about to go on a rampage in Mexico, isn't he.
@cstross Found on BlueSky: “CNN reports that ‘a source briefed by FAA tells the El Paso flight ban was driven by military operations from Biggs Army Air Field at Fort Bliss. The FAA acted after the Defense Department could not assure civilian flight safety.’” https://bsky.app/profile/onestpress.onestnetwork.com/post/3meln554tls2a
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It'll be something much worse than killing just one child.
Think on the order of Trump raping a pre-teen on camera, then strangling them to death. Now repeat multiple times, and/or for multiple Trump-adjacent movers and shakers. Then add evidence that Epstein was actively blackmailing them on behalf of a foreign government or three.
Then look for something worse.
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@cstross I expect it's from the relatively short list of courtiers with "speaks with master's voice" tokens for anything complicated happening now.
We can't rule out, I dunno, "Miller does peyote" as an input for strategic planning and operational decisions.
I really feel for the folks trying to produce intelligence assessments about American intentions. You always have to allow for world view but once you have to allow for "despises quantitative analysis" and "formally psychotic", good luck.
@cstross @graydon alternative six: someone misunderstood/misinterpreted some intel and got half a nation's knickers in a twist over what turned out to be the intel equivalent of a discarded piece of drainpipe and an empty spray can
Matt Blaze (@mattblaze@federate.social)
Update: TFR appears to have been lifted, effectively immediately.
federate.social (federate.social)
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@graydon It's a distraction from Epstein Island, sure. And the 3 million odd Epstein files that *haven't* been released. Given the shit in the files that *were* dumped, I can't to imagine what worse things are lurking in them.
@cstross You pick an island because it makes corpse disposal really easy.
I think it's been obvious for years that a lot of the abducted kids never left the island alive; I think it's further obvious that Epstein's sponsor ("where did Epstein's money come from?" remains an open question) and heavy cover had to have components of the US state involved. These are trees no one is barking up, to torment the metaphor; in part because the native nazi billionaires involved fear an uprising.
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This thing about the FAA closing airspace around El Paso and parts of New Mexico, for a week on pain of pain sounds batshit crazy until you remember that it's just across the border from Ciudad Juárez in Mexico.
The Trumpzilla is about to go on a rampage in Mexico, isn't he.
@cstross may he experience Montezuma’s Revenge
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@cstross You pick an island because it makes corpse disposal really easy.
I think it's been obvious for years that a lot of the abducted kids never left the island alive; I think it's further obvious that Epstein's sponsor ("where did Epstein's money come from?" remains an open question) and heavy cover had to have components of the US state involved. These are trees no one is barking up, to torment the metaphor; in part because the native nazi billionaires involved fear an uprising.
@graydon Yeah.
A sufficiently dark picture would be: Trump funded Epstein b/c he liked throttling kids; Epstein ran a fresh meat disposal operation from his island: the CIA were running it as an intel gathering exercise: the GRU and/or Mossad or similar obtained Epstein's cooperation: every US republican admin going back to GHWB is to some extent implicated.
"The US government has been run by and for paedophile serial killers since the end of the cold war" would be quite a look.
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This thing about the FAA closing airspace around El Paso and parts of New Mexico, for a week on pain of pain sounds batshit crazy until you remember that it's just across the border from Ciudad Juárez in Mexico.
The Trumpzilla is about to go on a rampage in Mexico, isn't he.
@cstross the closure has been lifted:
Live updates: Trump administration ties El Paso airspace closure to Mexican cartel drones
The Federal Aviation Administration reopened the airspace around El Paso International Airport in Texas. A Trump administration official tied the closure to Mexican cartel drones.
AP News (apnews.com)
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@graydon Yeah.
A sufficiently dark picture would be: Trump funded Epstein b/c he liked throttling kids; Epstein ran a fresh meat disposal operation from his island: the CIA were running it as an intel gathering exercise: the GRU and/or Mossad or similar obtained Epstein's cooperation: every US republican admin going back to GHWB is to some extent implicated.
"The US government has been run by and for paedophile serial killers since the end of the cold war" would be quite a look.
@cstross Like that, but it's too small.
The central point to all of this, irrespective of rationalization or obfuscation, is a bunch of the great and good who deal with insecurity by doing stuff to prove they can do anything they want. (Emphatically "fuck who they want", but in practice much broader.) No law binds me, etc.
Consider the hate for Obama as a result of Obama being the first president since Carter who wasn't part of the club. Or every intelligence agency functioning as a fiefdom.
