Saturday, May 31, 2014

Logistics: This is an article from a year ago, but it is a timeless testament to the durability of USGI ammunition cans.

Wisconsin family discovers fully-stocked fallout shelter in their back yard 50 years after it was installed at the height of the Cold War.
The boxes, old military ammunition crates, contained markings that suggested there might be explosives inside, so the family called the local branch of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Agents opened the crates to find... Hawaiian Punch.
Here's what the cans likely looked like when purchased as surplus:
This chest was labeled “11 AP PROJ MK 29 MOD 2, EMPTY, CU FT 1, 50 LBS”. It measures 15-1/4 X 12 X 14-1/2, has 4 clamps (one on each side), two handles and a rubber gasket. Boxes of this type were also used to ship fuses. Boxes of similar design but of different sizes were used for other types of ammunition. This is, I believe, a can for naval 20mm cannon ammunition.
And here is a reference guide to other types of ammunition cans. (Click on links labelled "Ammo Box - World War 2" and "Ammo Box - Post World War 2" for more.)

By the way, if you want to send a message to the new face of militarized police gestapo in this country whose depraved indifference burns babies in their cribs. . .

Here's his email address: jterrell@habershamga.com
Remember now, no threats.

Sick as a dog this morning.

Will try to have more later.

Collectivist Captain Canuck gives us some advice.

America’s gun-culture madness

The federal tyranny tightens its grip.

New federal database will track Americans' credit ratings, other financial information

The Judas goats at the New York Times continue bleating for citizen disarmament.

"Disaaaarm! Disaaaaarm! It's for the chiiiildren!"
The Arms Struggle in Chicago

OFA's James Taylor concert discriminates against undocumented and minorities

“Sponsor reserves the right to disqualify any potential winner from receiving any prize based on such background check if Sponsor determines, in its sole discretion, that awarding any prize to such potential winner could result in a safety or security risk to any person or persons or could result in the disruption of any event associated with the Promotion,” the rules warn.

Friday, May 30, 2014

A Country Where Police Burn Infants in Their Cribs

More militarized police madness.
LATER: Watch this video.

Evil is the Motive of Evil

From Sultan Knish:
Mass murderers act like aspiring celebrities because that's what they are. They want to be famous. They are compulsive narcissists who need everyone to pay attention to them.
Analyzing their manifestos for motive is a waste of time. Rodger, like Dorner, Breivik and Bin Laden, was obsessed with power fantasies. They all killed people to gain power over them and over the larger audience beyond their victims. They wanted to make the rest of the world see them the way they saw themselves. Their videos and manifestos were a pose like everything else about them.
A hundred years ago we would have called them evil. Today we pore over their writings trying to understand what made them snap. And when we do that, we make the mistake of assuming that their complaints made them kill, instead of being the excuse that allowed them to kill.

An excellent writeup on "Operation Choke Point" by David Hardy.

Operation Choke Point officially involved investigating banks that dealt with "high risk" businesses, in order to pressure them to drop their customers. Now it's becoming obvious that its targets include licensed firearms and ammunition dealers. (It also was expanded to payday lenders, for no apparent reason except that the government frowns upon them). Sounds to me like a possible case of tortious interference with contract.

The War on the Second Amendment: the Mental Health Gambit

The gun issue in the US is much more than about guns. It is about culture and about the role and scope of government in our lives. The gun controllers want more government in our lives and want to suppress America's gun, aka individual freedom, culture.

Where FBI assassins come from.

In this case, Oakland, Kalifornia. FBI Agent Involved in Fatal Shooting I.D.’d, Had Short But Troubled History at Oakland P.D.

Lest we forget. 8 September 2005: "New Orleans Begins Confiscating Firearms as Water Recedes."

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 8 - Waters were receding across this flood-beaten city today as police officers began confiscating weapons, including legally registered firearms, from civilians in preparation for a mass forced evacuation of the residents still living here. . .
"No civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry pistols, shotguns or other firearms, said P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of police. "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons," he said. . .
But that order apparently does not apply to hundreds of security guards hired by businesses and some wealthy individuals to protect property. The guards, employees of private security companies like Blackwater, openly carry M-16's and other assault rifles. Mr. Compass said that he was aware of the private guards, but that the police had no plans to make them give up their weapons.

Silly Mundane -- "Civil Rights" are for Killer Cops

The United States Constitution, as Seattle police officers pretend to understand it, extends to police an unqualified right to the discretionary use of aggressive force, and prohibits “second-guessing” by those who are not members of the State's coercive caste.

Judicial Watch Sues Department of Justice on behalf of ATF Fast & Furious Whistleblower Dodson

Remember this Sipsey Street exclusive from two years ago? Send in the clown. The truth about Katherine Eban Finkelstein. A "feminist" who wrote for Playboy and a "journalist" more interested in compromising other writers' sources than the truth. "Calling Eban a 'journalist' is an insult to honest journalists everywhere."
Well now Judicial Watch has filed a lawsuit on behalf of John Dodson asking some very relevant questions about Eban's hit-piece:
Suit specifically seeks communications between former DOJ Public Affairs Director Tracy Schmaler and Katherine Eban, author of controversial “Fortune” magazine article denounced by House Oversight Committee. . .
On September 24, 2012, Dodson filed three FOIA requests seeking the following information:
a) Any and all emails between (either directed to or received from) DOJ Spokeswoman/Director of Public Affairs Tracy Schmaler and Katherine Eban, between the dates of January 20, 2011 and September 24, 2012.
b) All emails (sent and received) by DOJ Spokeswoman/Director of Public Affairs Tracy Schmaler that contain the name John Dodson, Dodson, or make reference to any ATF whistleblower (whether directly stated or implied), between the dates of January 20, 2011 and September 24, 2012.
c) All Department of Justice communications generated between January 20, 2010 and September 24, 2012 including, but not limited to, emails, internal memos, letters, drafts, recordings and other documents, which refer to me (Special Agent John Dodson) whether by name or implication, or make reference to me as an ATF whistleblower, whether directly stated or implied. Excluded from this request are my own ATF case files, case documents, and emails from my ATF/DOJ email account.
To date, DOJ has failed to respond to Dodson’s requests. The Judicial Watch lawsuit filed on behalf of Dodson asks that the District Court order the DOJ to conduct searches for all records responsive to the FOIA requests and to “produce, by a certain date, any and all non-exempt records,” along with indices of all records that DOJ continues to declare exempt.
Dodson’s requests stem from the suspected leaking of information about him by former DOJ Director of Public Affairs Tracy Schmaler to Fortune magazine writer Katherine Eban, including Dodson’s confidential personnel file. Eban’s June 2012 Fortune magazine article defending the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) was denounced by the House Oversight Committee, which publicly called for a retraction.

Anti-gun fanatics continue to confirm no amount of citizen disarmament enough

The firestorm of hatred directed at gun owners following an evil misfit’s stabbing/shooting/car ramming spree in Isla Vista confirms this column’s observation that no amount of “gun control,” short of a total ban, will ever be enough for citizen disarmament proponents.

Serious questions surround ATF stings

Widely used sting operations facing new scrutiny from judges; two have declared them unconstitutional.

Thursday, May 29, 2014

From bad to worse: Dr. Ben Carson cannot be trusted on gun rights

>You want a "conversation," Carson? Then listen closely: keep your filthy claws off our guns--or face the consequences. Conversation over.

To my anonymous subscriber in Omaha.

God bless you, sir or madam. God bless you and thanks.

Obama "considered but rejected deploying military force under the directive during the recent standoff with Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his armed supporters."

Directive outlines Obama’s policy to use the military against citizens.
Well, it seems that my sources who reported at the time that the Bundy standoff was the subject of a meeting of under-secretaries of various cabinet departments (which I did not report, but awaited confirmation) were correct. It also makes more understandable the business of Oath Keepers and the rumor of military intervention, even if they were fed disinformation about a drone strike.
A U.S. official said the Obama administration considered but rejected deploying military force under the directive during the recent standoff with Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his armed supporters.
Mr. Bundy is engaged in a legal battle with the federal Bureau of Land Management over unpaid grazing fees. Along with a group of protesters, Mr. Bundy in April confronted federal and local authorities in a standoff that ended when the authorities backed down.
The Pentagon directive authorizes the secretary of defense to approve the use of unarmed drones in domestic unrest. But it bans the use of missile-firing unmanned aircraft.
"Use of armed [unmanned aircraft systems] is not authorized," the directive says.
It is further interesting that the link provided to the original document no longer works.

Boehner's Imperial Toadies Ponder Striking Back.

John Boehner’s friends plot tea party crackdown

Scott Martelle of the LA Times -- Yet another volunteer for the Julius Streicher award. My email acknowledging his contribution.

You say gun control doesn't work? Fine. Let's ban guns altogether.
My email to the author:
From: georgemason1776@aol.com
To: scott.martelle@latimes.com
Sent: Thu, May 29, 2014 5:17 am
Subject: This is to confirm your self-nomination for the Julius Streicher Memorial Award
Dear Mr. Martelle,
Pursuant to a codicil of the Law of Unintended Consequences as amended by President Bill Clinton in 1999 when he was dealing with the Serbs, this is to acknowledge that your self-nomination for the Julius Streicher Memorial Award in the categories of "Solicitation of Civil War" and "Advocacy of Collectivist Tyranny" has been received and duly noted for posterity --- "You say gun control doesn't work? Fine. Let's ban guns altogether." (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-gun-control-ban-homicides-suicides-20140528-story.html)
Julius Streicher, you may recall, was Adolf Hitler's favorite "journalist." He later received the fruits of his labors on behalf of collectivist tyranny by dancing the executioner's jig at Nuremberg in 1946. You may be less familiar with the manner in which President Clinton changed the rules of war as practiced by the United States when, in a fit of pique over Serbian intransigence, he expanded them to include the political leadership, media advocates and intelligentsia who supported his enemy's war effort. Pursuant to this sea change in our rules of engagement, he ordered that precision guided munitions be targeted at various and sundry targets, including the studios of Serbian radio and television.
Given that fact, and as your proposal, if acted upon, will certainly ignite a bloody civil war which will be fought along the lines of those 4th Generation Warfare principles as embraced by Clinton -- something I'm sure you're intelligent enough to have thought through before you made it -- your advocacy of collectivist tyranny for this country in the face of the Founders' clear intent of the Second Amendment to the Constitution is bravely made, sir.
We here at Sipsey Street Irregulars would merely like to recognize such bravery and to note it for the historical record, which, as Streicher discovered to his dismay, has a bad habit of coming around and biting you in the ass at some future date according to the Law of Unintended Consequences. Well done, sir. Julius Streicher, burning in Hell though he may be, would be proud.
Mike Vanderboegh
PO Box 926
Pinson AL 35126.
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com

And lest you think that life today is all about lying collectivists and out-of-contol militarized police. . .

Retired Brig. Gen. George Bartlett, a former navigator bombardier during WWII, stands near a B-25 Mitchell bomber May 18 during the 2014 Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point Air Show. Bartlett flew out of Cherry Point 70 years ago in a North American Aviation patrol bomber, a naval version of the B-25, for combat in the South Pacific. While there, he flew 75 combat missions. His return flight to the air station for the air show marked a significant milestone not just in aviation history, but in the passing of the torch from an older generation to a new one, said the 90-year-old aviator. (Photo by Lance Cpl. Andrea Cleopatra Dickerson)
As he flew into Cherry Point for the 2014 MCAS Cherry Point Air Show in “Panchito,” a B-25 Mitchell bomber, retired Brig. Gen. George Bartlett felt a sense of nostalgia come over him. . .
According to May, it is not uncommon for former service members to get emotional when they see the aircraft. “They will come up to the plane and literally stand there and cry,” she said. “It is heartwarming to see that.”

Shootout on Kumquat Drive.

Edgewater Police Investigate Officer’s Negligent Discharge Of AR-15

That'll teach the ungrateful bastard to dick around with the VA. Apparently they had to kill the man in order to save him.

Family: V.A. Cops Stomped On Veteran’s Head, Killing Him.

The all-powerful but shy Only Ones lose another case. Court upholds “First Amendment” right to film police.

Ruling is one of many nationwide supporting right to record police.

A series of unfortunate events.

Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Police Who Used Deadly Force to End High-Speed Car Chase
See also: Justices seem to side with police in deadly chase case

Praxis & Required Reading: Are You Talking to a Provocateur?

Folks, treat this as required reading. It is by a former supervisory DEA agent: The imagined look and persona of an agent provocateur in most people’s minds probably couldn’t be further from the truth. Most would probably picture the obscure, silent individual lurking in the back of the room while doing his best to conceal his identity and his movements. If you accept that image, you have also accepted the notion that the provocateur is really just peeking in on, documenting, and recording pre-existing criminal activities and shady plans going on around him. You haven’t faced the reality that the whole show is the production of the provocateur. . .
As a final comment, most countries in the world do not allow agent provocateur activity. It is expressly prohibited. Rather, it is an established legal principle that a lying government agent involved in criminal activity misrepresenting himself to the other parties cannot be excluded as a defendant in any criminal conspiracy that is charged as a result of his action. Otherwise, the validity of the assent of the private parties to the conspiracy, or the existence of the conspiracy itself, would be in question. Being a lying provocateur is not an acceptable court defense in those places for state actors who arrange to ship drugs, blow people up, shoot people, etc. The U.S. is not one of those places.

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

More self-nominees for the Julius Streicher award.

Julius Streicher, Hitler's favorite "journalist," after dancing to the executioner's jig at Nuremberg, 1946.
'News' team drops all pretenses of objectivity with gun violence awareness month.

The Daily Collectivist comments on Joe the Plumber's "Your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights"

Those of us who have been around the firearm rights struggle for a while have seen more than our share of blood dancing by the advocates of citizen disarmament in the wake of mass killings. But THIS is a new record: "Father of Isla Vista victim joins the ‘You don’t need’ chorus." Reflexively and immediately dancing in the blood of your own kid takes a certain amount of collectivist pre-programming.
"Joe the Plumber" was motivated to write this new face of gun confiscation, reminding him: "As harsh as this sounds – your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights." Joe may not get points for timing or sensitivity but he is, of course, entirely correct.
The Daily Collectivist calls this "conservative sensitivity at its finest" and goes on with the confiscationist meme:"
This kind of absolutism disturbs those of us that see shades of gray. . . . I have previously laid out my own view when it comes to gun control. Guns should be treated like other potentially deadly instrumentalities. Automobiles are registered and their operators are licensed. Guns should be treated in a similar manner. Those that are designed with the express, and sole, purpose of killing people should be banned. The capacity of clips should be limited. Users should be licensed. There should be universal background checks and licensees should be required to demonstrate some degree of proficiency. We do not let drivers out onto the road without first demonstrating they can safely operate an automobile. Gun owners should be required to demonstrate they can safely operate their firearms.
The Daily Collectivist author, writing under the nom d'guerre of "Mets102," then quotes Gawker's Adam Weinstein:
Likewise for gun rights, where conservatives led by lobbyists and luddites like Joe the Plumber have abandoned talk about the good and replaced it with talk about the right. The good can be negotiated as hard cases arise. The right is non-negotiable. It is immutable. It is either respected or infringed. If you believe, as Joe and the NRA do, that the Second Amendment is an absolute right to personal firearms ownership—not merely that it's good for something, like self-defense or recreation, but that it's an immutable right — then even background checks or limits on multiple-magazine purchases or just simply talking about compromise and offering real sympathy to survivors is an infringement on that right. In this ideology, talk of social responsibility in the exercise of rights becomes synonymous with socialism.
Finally, a collectivist who is beginning to comprehend. But he hasn't thought it through. "What happens when you continue to push such people?" he should ask ask himself. The answer is civil war, you ninny. Or, if you want to personalize it, like Bill Clinton did to the Serbs in 1999, Weinstein could very easily get himself killed in such a conflict by advocating it.

Sorry, but I just now have released the comments from today.

Been sick all day and haven't felt good enough to look at email or release comments, let alone get to my to-do list of articles. My apologies.

"Gun Wimps for Gun Rights."

So I would like to make a plea to my fellow citizens: please buy, carry, and even stockpile weapons. Carry them with you always. Keep them in your homes and cars. It’s especially important to do this in public places, where freak murderers lurk. The weapons should be loaded and dangerous, capable of killing with one shot.

Report people feeding their family. Because game and fish belong to the KING.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Walter Williams on "White Privilege."

The average parent has no idea of the devious indoctrination going on in classrooms in many public schools.

23 State AGs Support Appeal of Decision Upholding Connecticut’s New Gun Law

Attorneys general in 23 states signed on last week to an appeal by state Second Amendment advocates of a federal court decision which upheld the constitutionality of Connecticut’s gun control law.

Gun Control's False Promise: The Isla Vista Massacre Reveals the Emptiness of the Anti-Gun Lobby's 'Real Solutions'

The day after his 20-year-old son, Christopher, was shot down at a deli in Isla Vista, Calif., Richard Martinez blamed his death on "craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA." Gun-control advocates quickly seized upon Martinez's remarks, using his grief to obscure the illogic of their position.

How the west embraced Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book

At the peak of its popularity, Mao's bible was the most printed book in the world. It attained the status of a sacred, holy text during the Cultural Revolution, and retains its place among western devotees.
Reading the essays brought together here, you would hardly realise that Mao was responsible for one of the biggest human catastrophes in recorded history. Launched by him in 1958, the Great Leap Forward cost upwards of 45 million human lives. “When there is not enough to eat, people starve to death,” Mao observed laconically. “It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.”

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Lawsuits likely outcome of Isla Vista ‘day of retribution’ killings

Don’t expect the National Rifle Association to be sued, at least successfully, following the stabbing and car ramming of some victims, and shooting of others, in spite of angry and irrational gun-grabber rhetoric blaming the organization for the murders. As seen in a weekend Gun Rights Examiner post that is still generating no shortage of predictably hostile and insulting comments, California’s status as a top “gun control” state demonstrates it already provides a virtual wish list of what anti-gunners call “common sense gun safety laws.” Any further erosion of the right to keep and bear arms would involve banning private ownership of firearms altogether, since there’s really nowhere else for the gun-grabbers to go, and they know that would be pushing things too far -- at present.

Colorado City Pays $25k To Man Arrested For Bringing A Gun To The Movies

The wages of hoplophobia.

Darn near killed myself yesterday

All females being off doing other stuff, I made the mistake of weed whacking part of the yard yesterday, so of course I am beyond exhausted today. Running late. I'll have more later.

The Spectacle of Mass Murder

He killed his three room mates. Knifed-them down with startling hand-to-hand brutality. Those victims weren’t sorority girls. Those deaths weren’t about the sex. So what were those killings for? As far as the kid in the BMW was concerned, all that mattered was that the nation’s attention would be focused on him. The victims here are incidental to the story the kid in the BMW wants to tell.

Survival In The White Mountains

Some sage advice from Herschel Smith.

Provocations.

China Sinking Fishing Vessel Raises Tensions With Vietnam

One of Thomas Sowell's "Random Thoughts" columns packs more truth than most collectivist academics discover in a lifetime.

Random Thoughts
One from today's:
Freedom means nothing if it does not mean the freedom to do what other people don't like. Everyone was free to be a Communist under the Stalin dictatorship, and everyone is free to be a Muslim in Saudi Arabia. Yet whole generations are coming out of our colleges where only those who are politically correct are free to speak their minds. What kind of America will they create?
Another:
Republicans in Congress seem to be drawn toward the immigration issue like a moth toward a flame. How turning illegal immigrants into Democratic voters, while demoralizing the Republican base, will help either the country or the Republicans is a mystery. If ever there was a high-risk, low-yield investment, this is it.

Monday, May 26, 2014

Conservatives float alternative to Boehner

Some conservatives unhappy with House Speaker John Boehner's leadership are looking for a replacement, and recent moves by Texas Republican Jeb Hensarling are fueling speculation he wants Boehner's job in the next Congress.

Veteran cemeteries denying rights to surviving Memorial Day mourners

It seems a curious attitude for the government to impose on the living, particularly on ground established to memorialize those who risked, and sometimes gave all in defense of freedom and the Constitution they swore an oath to uphold. As those enforcing the rules can provide no actual evidence that depriving citizens of rights is either compelling or that they are Constitutionally-authorized to mandate it and override “shall not be infringed,” it would appear to be one of those “null and void” regulations the government is so bent on imposing.

Sorry, you traitorous, blackmailed dog, you've already failed THAT test.

On Memorial Day, (Boehner) asked for “the will and the wisdom to prove worthy of the fallen.”

By request on this Memorial Day, a reprint of Eric Fisher Wood's Private War

Originally posted in December, 2009.

Folks,

16 December 1944 saw the opening of the German offensive later known as the Battle of the Bulge. Remember, as you mark this day, Eric Fisher Wood, an American warrior, a man who more than any other single man, made a material difference to the outcome of the battle. His story is inspiring, almost electrifying, in its incredible details. The fact that his name is almost entirely unknown to this generation of Americans condemns us all.

One of my favorite subjects of study is the American army in defeat -- Philippines, 1942, Kasserine Pass, 1942, Battle of the Bulge, 1944-45, Korea, June, 1950 & November, 1950 -- for only in defeat do you see the best and the worst of humanity and in that terrible crucible learn lessons that are visible nowhere else.

Rifleman Dodd by C.S. Forester is likewise one of my favorite novels. Dodd, skirmisher of the 95th Rifles in Wellington's Army during the Peninsular War, was cut off from his unit as it retreated. His story of continued resistance against all odds was written in 1932, first published in England under the title "Death to the French." By the time Eric Fisher Wood entered West Point it was popular reading among cadets. One can only speculate what effect Rifleman Dodd had on the young plebe. What is certain is that Eric Fisher Wood, an American Dodd, outdid his fictional hero by a country mile. I will have some more comments on the other side of his story.

Mike
III

The Lonely War of Lt. Eric Fisher Wood, Jr.

Saturday Evening Post, December 20, 1947 by R. Ernest Dupuy, Col. USA, Ret.

Told for the first time, the story of a young lieutenant who almost single-handedly saved the right flank of an American army in the Battle of the Bulge, "the most amazing example of heroism in World War II."

DARING indeed would be he who named one individual as the epitome of human heroism. Through the ages, men of all nations and all races have fought well and died well. Once in a great while, however, a man emerges who, under extraordinary circumstances, flings down the gauntlet to death, defies fate, says farewell to the conflict only when breath leaves his body. Since chance - and chance alone - decides whether or not there be witnesses to such an exploit, let us say of what follows only that it is the most amazing example of heroism as yet to come out of World War II.

The man was a first lieutenant, Field Artillery, AUS, one of thousands bearing identical labels. The cannons were squatty, humped-up, wicked looking pieces towed by great six-by-six trucks- three of thousands of the same type carried on Ordnance records aa "Howitzer, 105 mm., M1." There the resemblance of this man and these cannons to others of their respective kinds ceases. For the cannons saved the right flank of an American army in the Ardennes. And had it not been for the man, they wouldn't have been available to do it. After the cannons bad been lost with honor when howling waves of the Nazi 2nd SS Panzer Division washed over both them and the remnants of the field artillery battalion serving them, the man continued to wage single handed warfare against the 6th SS Panzer Army. So the man, as always, is the important element. And his tale is worth the telling.

It begins on December 16,1944, when the Battle of the Bulge broke furiously on the Ardennes front. The howitzers - there were four of them to start with - of Battery A, 589th Field Artillery Battalion, 106th Infantry Division, emplaced in rear of the little village of Schlausenbach on the north- western slopes of the Schnee Eifel, were, with the rest of the battalion, supporting the 422nd Infantry Regiment of the same division. 1st Lt. Eric F. Wood, Jr., from Bedford, Pennsylvania, twenty-five year- old Princeton fullback, five feet eleven, 195 pounds in weight and catlike in reflexes, was executive officer of the battery. His skipper, Capt. Aloysiua J. Menke, up at a forward OP, was silent. He would continue to be silent, for the first kraut wave had overrun the OP, and Menke, a prisoner, will not enter this story again. Wood was then acting battery commander.

Up the forest through a gaping hole torn in the northern sector of the 106th Division's recently inherited cordon defense positions, the Germans were swarming around the left flank and rear of the infantry, and into the artillery positions. Three German tanks pushed along the road, one leading on the road and two others off the road in the draw behind the leader. Lt. Wood, from his command position, shouted commands to his No. 1 piece gunner, John Gatens, who with two shots destroyed the lead tank by direct fire. No. 1, incidentally, was the only piece in the entire battalion which could reach any of the defilade tanks. Lt. Wood, the previous day, had arranged for No. 1 gun to be placed so that it could sweep the road. The lead tank destroyed by No. 1 gun, Wood then ordered all four guns to fire on the remaining tanks that were below the hill. He did this with high elevation fire, using one powder bag instead of seven. The remaining two tanks were disabled by this "indirect fire." He then swept the woods around him with short-cut fuse, breaking up the enemy's infantry support.

All this was but a temporary respite.. By nightfall the battalion was ordered to fall back; the krauts were crowding in from all sides. But getting out was easier said than done. In the Battery A positions the big tow trucks churned the icy muck to a paste in which the howitzers sank almost hub deep. Hostile fire, small arms and artillery was sweeping the area. Snow blew patchily into sweating faces in the night. The wind howled through trees each of which might be hiding an infiltrating enemy soldier. Hostile flares flickered over the snow drooped pines. It was not nice. But Eric Wood tore around, and the men of Battery A tore and tugged with him. He was that kind of guy. At last they got the howitzers on the road one by one, with two trucks grinding at each piece and with little clumps of men pushing, like ants tussling with twigs. The howitzers could shoot again, once they dropped trails, for Eric Wood had packed eighty-three rounds of ammunition for each piece in the trucks. In the rest of the battalion Battery C never got out. The pieces, too deeply mired, had to be blown up. That left eight howitzers out of twelve. Battery B got out ahead of A, and the outfit went swaying and fumbling in the dark over a narrow corduroy trail, while the enemy, with white phosphorus shells, hunted for them.

They got to their new positions by dawn. A field on the right of the road that runs north from Bleialf into Schonberg on the Our. They were about a mile and a quarter from Schonberg itself. Battery B got in first. Wood got three of his howitzers in. The last one, lagging, its tow truck partly crippled, he held on the road as antitank defense. The Germans were really bursting through in force that second morning. From the north they were coming down the Our valley into Schönberg; from the south they were coming up this road from Bleialf. But all that Eric Wood knew was that the world seemed full of krauts. The enemy from the south washed nearer, overrunning their neighbors. The acting battalion commander - the original was cut off behind them with Battery C - ordered the outfit out, to push through Schönberg and west toward St. Vith. Wood got two pieces rolling and sent the crippled third howitzer back with them. "I'll meet you west of Schönberg," he told the section chief, Sgt. Barney M. Alford, "if I get there."

For Wood's last howitzer was stuck. Once again the perversity of inanima to objects was working against him. So he stayed to get it out, with its crew. They worked at it while more krauts began to overrun Battery B, and its howitzers were abandoned. That, of course, left four howitzers in the battalion, out of twelve. When Wood at long last got his last piece on the road and swung over the tail gate of the truck, the last man out, the main body of the 589th Field Artillery Battalion consisting now of Wood's three other howitzers and some truckloads of men of both batteries, was way ahead of him. This bedraggled outfit hit Schönberg to find the krauts coming in from the north. The three piece "battalion" beat them to the Our River bridge by seconds, and got away. It got away to fight again, beginning on December nineteenth, at a dreary crossroads far to the west on the hastily forming and still somewhat nebulous right flank of the United States 1st Army. How these three howitzers for four days saved the right flank of the 82nd Airborne Division and of the Army at "Parker's Crossroads" is another story.

When Eric Wood and the twelve men with him in the truck now came rolling down the steep hill into Schönberg the howitzer bounding behind, a kraut tank poked its nose out of the southern entrance of the village. Brake bands screamed as the truck pulled up in front of it. Wood and his men piled out to attack it. Pfc. Campagna had a bazooka, the others their carbines. But the tank wasn't having any - God knows why! It scuttled crab like back across the bridge and disappeared into the town with Wood and his gang in pursuit. They crossed the bridge and pointed west in Schönberg's one street, with snipers pecking at them. And they slowed down while Sergeant Scannapico and Pfc. Campagna, still hugging his bazooka, ran ahead to see where that tank had holed up. They found it tucked in an alley. Scannapico fired his carbine at it. Campagna, climbing into the truck, let fly with his bazooka as they rolled past. Again the tank wasn't having any. The truck slowed to let Scannapico catch up, but a sniper got him cold. So the section rolled on. They gathered speed as they left the village and met, over a rise in the road, another kraut tank. A medium, this, with its cannon and machine guns trained directly on them.

Wood's reflexes worked instantaneously. He pitched his men and himself out into the ditch an instant before the tank's artillery blasted the truck to scrap iron. That was that, so far as getting the howitzer back safely was concerned. It left the battalion's score at three out of twelve. But what about Wood and his men? The enemy was firing at them now from across the river on the right. Kraut infantry were firing from the trees beyond the meadow across the road to the right rear. More kraut infantry was pouring out of Schönberg behind them. And that tank squatted in front of them a stone's throw away. To the ordinary man, the situation seemed hopeless. And all but one of the group were ordinary men. They raised their hands to surrender. They were through. But Eric Wood wasn't through. Leaping the ditch, he ran, dodging northwards the trees. The others could see kraut bullets sending little squirts of snow puffing up in the meadow at his heels, until he disappeared from sight in the shelter of the forest.

Late in the afternoon of the next day, December eighteenth, Peter Maraite, woodsman, left his home in the mountain village of Meyerode, Belgium, about four miles north of where that tank had smashed Eric Wood's truck. There were Germans all around. There had been fighting; doubtless there would be more. But Maraite had something else to think about. He was going to Cut a Christmas tree - there had always been a tree in the Maraite house for Christmas; there always would, as long as Peter could provide one. They are like that, in the Ardennes, war washed for generations. So Peter plodded for a mile through the woods, moving southeast in the general direction of Schönberg. It was cold; clammy mist cloaked the woods. The snow powdered his head as he brushed low branches. Then two armed men loomed in front of him at a six way trail crossing - Americans. Peter knew Americans when he saw them; they had held this sector for more than two months now. One was a big man with single silver bars on the shoulders of his short overcoat. He had a pistol. The other was smaller and wore no insignia of rank. He was armed with an infantryman's rifle, not an artillery man's carbine.

Peter Maraite is insistent on this point. Now, like most of the Belgians of this border country, Peter Maraite spoke only German. The Americans could not speak German. But Peter managed to convey the idea that he was a friend; he invited them home. Cold, wet and tired, they accepted. Because of the Germans, they came home cautiously, slipped into the warm stone house where astonished Anna Maria, Peter Maraite's wife, and wide eyed Eva, their daughter, rushed to pour hot coffee. The Americans gulped it down while Eva slipped out to bring back Peter's trusted friend, and neighbor, Jean Schroder, who spoke English. The watchdog was put outside to guard the door. The Americans relaxed, steaming their soggy clothes before the fire. The big young officer, with a confident, smiling face, told how he had escaped from a detachment surrounded near Schönberg. He and his companion were going to St. Vith. He was concerned about the fate of his men, "all very good and loyal men," as Peter Maraite remembers the conversation. The villagers warned that the country between Meyerode and St. Vith was full of Germans.

The young officer wasn't a bit disturbed by their shaking heads. "I'll either fight my way back to my outfit," he told them, "or I'll collect American stragglers. I've seen some in the woods around here and I'll start a small war of my own." What he wanted now was information about the Germans. He pulled out a map. So, while the woman and the girl bustled to get supper, the young American officer and the two droopy- mustached woodsmen pored over the map. The Americans couldn't go that night, the villagers said; they would. So the two Americans ate and drank with their hosts. The officer cracked jokes "said funny things which made us laugh," is the way Peter and Anna Maria Maraite put it. He seemed to have no fears. After they cleaned their weapons, the Americans repaired to the big soft feather bed while their clothes dried. They slept the sleep of tired but confident men, not waking even when a V bomb crashed in the outskirts of Meyerode with its hideous thunder.

The Maraites at first wondered if their American visitors had been among those captured on the Ades Berg. Perhaps - but odd things were happening in those woods southeast and east of the village, deep behind the German lines in the dense Omerscheid area of the Bullingen Forest. Daily, bursts of small arms fire came from the hills, and sometimes the "wham" of a mortar. These sounds were in addition to the crashes of bombs and pom-pomming of flak guns along the highways to the west. The weather had cleared and the Allied air forces were taking toll of German columns. Fighter bombers continually strafed the roads. The Germans had had to reroute their daylight movements through the secondary roads in the eastern woods leading to the Our Valley and thence through the Losheim Gap. It was from this area that those unexplained small arms bursts were coming over the cold air to the peasants huddled in their homes. Meyerode people began to notice that while large forces came and went at will through the hills, never did a small body of Germans or a supply column pass into the pine woods but that one of those mysterious bursts of fire followed. And the krauts issued orders strictly forbidding civilian movement in the forests.

Chance words dropped by the Germans, unguarded bursts of wrath from officers of the staff billeted in the village, plus the evidence of their own eyes and ears, gradually were pieced together by the Maraites and their neighbors. In a community like Meyerode the grapevine travels fast. Most of the burghers knew of the Americans who had stayed at the Maraite dwelling. Sepp Dietrich himself, quartered in the home of Jean Pauels, the burgomaster - a relative of Anna Maria Maraite - began to thunder about American "criminal scoundrels and bandits." The krauts were getting nervous, itchy. Daily, wounded men came in from the easterly woods, some hobbling, some carried. Kraut orderlies gossiped. "Damned bandits," it seemed, flitted like ghosts through the trees out there, hid in snow banks. A German traveling those woods never knew when a bullet might come singing his way. Larger and larger detachments were assigned to guard working parties who from time to time took a six horse snowplow out to clear those wood roads. Searching patrols went daily into the forest, but no American prisoners ever were brought back.

So the weeks rolled on, with the daily crack of small arms on the winter air, and the burghers of Meyerode built up their theory. They conjectured that out in the forest a small but organized group of Americans roamed. They had plenty of arms, they had at least one medium mortar, and they were taking a steady toll of the Germans. And all the stories added up one way: that these American guerrillas were led by the young officer who had visited the Maraites, a man "very big and powerful of body and brave of spirit." He kept his wolf pack going, it was said, by sheer will power. There could not have been many of them - the Meyerode woodsmen later found no evidences of large bivouacs other than those known to be German. How they existed through those bone chilling winter weeks no one knows. Probably horse meat was their diet - there were several horse drawn kraut artillery units in the neighborhood, and horse drawn transport was daily passing through. Perhaps the Americans found rations in abandoned dumps. There was an ammunition dump at a trail crossing just a mile south of Meyerode where, after the Germans had gone, villagers found quantities of mortar ammunition still remaining.

Anyway, the daily firing in the woods continued until the middle of January. It was stilled just a few days before the counterattack ebbed and the Americans began slashing back into the neighborhood - perhaps about January twenty-second. When the Germans left, the people of Meyerode combed those woods. The burgomaster first sent two competent woodsmen - his cousin August Pauels and Servatius Maraite - to search. They found German graves and some unburied German dead. And they found a few American dead, also unburied. In a dense thicket southeast of Meyerode, not far from the six way trail crossing, Servatius Maraite found the body of an American officer, a big young man, "with single silver bars on his shoulders." Near him lay the bodies of seven German soldiers. All had been dead about the same length of time - as well as could be judged, perhaps ten days before the Germans were driven out. American Graves Registration people later would fix the date as probably January twenty-second. That no living Germans had later visited this spot, the villagers agree. This was evidenced by the fact that the American officer still had in his clothing his papers and 4000 Belgian francs, a sum no kraut looter would overlook. So the American had died as he had lived -- a free man, taking with him when he went the last of his pursuers.

That American officer, Graves Registration attests, was 1st Lt. Eric F. Wood, Jr. And the people of Meyerode say that he was the man befriended by Peter Maraite and his family - the leader of the American guerrillas, whose description by wounded Germans, according to Burgomaster Jean Pauels, fits "like a police description" with that of Eric Wood. Records and statements of eyewitnesses prove that the only officer of the 106th Infantry Division unaccounted for from December sixteenth onward - that is, neither dead nor alive as free man or prisoner of war - was 1st Lt. Eric F. Wood, Jr.

("The details of the killing of the German tanks were updated from actual accounts (1999) of those that participated in the battle at the time. The additions of these actual accounts do not change the overall description of the original author.")


MBV: Consider the difference one indomitable man made in this battle --

The three guns he saved (the only ones of his division that made it out) were critical in the "Battle for Parker's Crossroads," a delaying action on the northern shoulder of the Bulge that allowed the 82nd Airborne and other units to defend the Elsenborn Ridge. Unable to break out to the north or the south, the Germans were channeled into the delaying actions at St. Vith and Bastogne. With the holding of the shoulders, the German offensive was doomed.

Second, we can only speculate what effect his little guerrilla war had on German logistics, but if the Belgian witnesses are correct, it was enough to make Sepp Dietrich half-crazy with frustration. Of course, it was poor logistics that, as much as being channeled between the shoulders, was the reason the offensive failed.

Finally, there is the butcher's bill reckoning of the effectiveness of a soldier. How many Germans did he kill before he went down outside Meyerode? Whatever it was, it was a uneven trade for the Germans.

So take a few moments and ponder the incredible fight and sacrifice of Lt. Eric Fisher Wood, Jr. His story is an American inspiration for the ages. We are coming into another dark moment of American history. Let us hope the next Eric Woods are getting ready for the fight.

CNN analyst says 'countless restrictions' on 2nd Amendment acceptable

Ah, so that's his standard--as long as the government's recognition of the right to keep and bear arms does not "vanish altogether," we're golden. In an instant, shall not be infringed, has become "shall not vanish altogether," and that's supposed to be good enough for us. It's not, O'Mara, and it's not good enough for the brave men and women we celebrate today who died upholding their oath to defend the rights you are so casually willing to toss away, as long as it's done in small enough pieces.

On this Memorial Day holiday, remember Wolverton's prayer.

Lt. Col. Robert Lee Wolverton commanded the 3rd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, from 1942 until his death on D-Day, 6 June 1944. He was born in Elkins, Randolph County, West Virginia on 5 October 1914. In Deliver Us From Darkness, Ian Gardner writes: "Colonel Wolverton was much loved by the men and had felt compelled to speak candidly to them before boarding the aircraft for France. Every single man had been touched in some way by his incredibly poignant and emotive words."
Before the Normandy Landing the men were called together, and they stood in an orchard on either side of a low earthen mound which fenced the fields. Upon the earthen hedgerow stood Lt. Col. Robert L. Wolverton, commanding officer of 3rd battalion, 506th PIR. And the colonel said:
"Men, I am not a religious man and I don't know your feelings in this matter, but I am going to ask you to pray with me for the success of the mission before us. And while we pray, let us get on our knees and not look down but up with faces raised to the sky so that we can see God and ask his blessing in what we are about to do.
"God almighty, in a few short hours we will be in battle with the enemy. We do not join battle afraid. We do not ask favors or indulgence but ask that, if You will, use us as Your instrument for the right and an aid in returning peace to the world.
"We do not know or seek what our fate will be. We ask only this, that if die we must, that we die as men would die, without complaining, without pleading and safe in the feeling that we have done our best for what we believed was right.
"
Oh Lord, protect our loved ones and be near us in the fire ahead and with us now as we pray to you."
All were silent for two minutes as the men were left, each with his individual thoughts. Then the colonel ordered, "Move out."
A few hours later, Wolverton was killed by German machine gun fire in an orchard outside St. Come-du-Mont, Normandy, France.
After the war, LTC Wolverton's body was disinterred and moved to the West Point Military Academy post cemetery.

The Purge Arrives at the University of Virginia: PC Thugs versus Douglas Laycock

Lewis said they’re not trying to smear Laycock, and they’re not trying to undermine academic freedom. They just want a dialogue, he said. More like all collectivists -- it's really a monologue they want.

The wages of politically-correct cultural collectivism: auto-genocide. Doing the Klan's job for them.

"The disastrous effects of the government's management of anti-poverty initiatives are recognizable across racial lines, but the destruction is particularly evident in the black community. It effectively subsidized the dissolution of the black family by rendering the black man's role as a husband and a father irrelevant, invisible and — more specifically — disposable. The result has been several generations of blacks born into broken homes and broken communities experiencing social, moral and economic chaos. It fosters an inescapable dependency that primarily, and oftentimes solely, relies on government to sustain livelihoods." -- Derryck Green.
Between the undeniable fact that -- both currently and historically -- the greatest murderers of black folks are, by far, other black folks and this little headline, it's enough to make a dead Klan church bomber smile: "Nearly one-third of all pregnancies in the city of Detroit end in abortion."

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Pardon me, but who gives a tiny turd what YOU want, collectivist?

I'm a gun owner and I want gun control

Trouble Brewing.

Link.

Killer Tomato Cass Sunstein thinks Chinese indoctrination system is just peachy.

(R)ecent curricular reforms in China, explicitly designed to transform students’ political views, have mostly worked. The findings offer remarkable evidence about the potential influence of the high school curriculum on what students end up thinking. . . The crucial finding from the study is that the new curriculum greatly affected students’ thinking. They became more likely to count the Chinese political system as democratic. They displayed a higher level of trust in public officials. They were more skeptical of free markets, and more likely to reject the view that a market economy is preferable to any other economic system. . .

Messing up the gun confiscation meme. "Ooops! Shooter was Liberal, Elite, Hated Women, and Racist."

A regular reader forwards the link below with the comment: "Ooops! Shooter was Liberal, Elite, Hated Women, and Racist."
Gunman wrote his experiences at British prep school led to shooting spree
" ...he went to college in Santa Barbara where his English roots played on his mind when he met a black student with a white blonde girlfriend."
(snip)
“How could an inferior, ugly black boy be able to get a white girl and not me?” he wrote. “I am beautiful, and I am half white myself. I am descended from British aristocracy. He is descended from slaves. I deserve it more.”
Of course it won't matter. Facts never got in the way of collectivist lies in the past, why should they begin to do so now?

Blaming NRA over killings shows no amount of laws enough for anti-gunners

“Why did Chris die? Chris died because of craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA,” Richard Martinez told assembled reporters. “They talk about gun rights. What about Chris’ right to live? When will this insanity stop?” The sentiments have been echoed by raving gun-grabbers on Twitter, where the tone is uglier. What’s emerging is something psychiatrist Sarah Thompson described as “Raging against Self-Defense,” that is, indignant slurs by people who bring neither facts nor logic nor anything but ignorance and hostility to the discussion. That said, those individuals have done gun owners an unintended service, because they clearly offer proof that no amount of “gun control,” for which California has been hailed as a leader by citizen disarmament groups, will ever be enough for them.

Details From Suspected Santa Barbara Shooter’s 141-Page Manifesto

In his perfect society, Rodger would be the Earth’s “divine ruler,” where he would quarantine all women in concentration camps and then starve them to death.

Don't get in the boxcar. "The Round Up" & a reprint, 15 years later, of Six Lessons I Have Learned From the Twentieth Century.

Last night I watched the French movie, Le Rafle, "The Round Up," a faithful retelling of the mass arrest of Jews by the Vichy government and the French police who acted on their orders as Nazi accomplices in Paris in July 1942.
Wikipedia makes clear how Le Rafle was facilitated by the French bureaucracy:
Until the German occupation of France in 1940, no roundup would have been possible because no census listing religions had been held in France since 1874. A German ordinance on 21 September 1940, however, forced Jewish people of the occupied zone to register at a police station or sub-prefectures (sous-préfectures). Nearly 150,000 registered in the department of the Seine, encompassing Paris and its immediate suburbs. Their names and addresses were kept by the French police in the fichier Tulard, a file named after its creator, André Tulard, head of "Jewish Matters" at the préfecture.
Theodor Dannecker, the SS captain who commanded the German police in France, said: "This filing system subdivided it into files alphabetically classed, Jews with French nationality and foreign Jews having files of different colours, and the files were also classed, according to profession, nationality and street." These files were then handed to section IV J of the Gestapo, in charge of the "Jewish problem."
Using these files as guides, beginning at 4:00 a.m. on 16 July 1942, 13,152 Jews were arrested according to records of the Préfecture de police, of which 5,802 (44%) were women and 4,051 (31%) were children. Wikipedia reports that "an unknown number of people, warned by the French Resistance or hidden by neighbors or benefiting from a lack of zeal, deliberate or accidental, of some policemen, escaped being rounded up." Of those taken, fewer than 50 survived.
The movie is, like all such mass murder historical dramas (Schindler's List, Hotel Rwanda, etc.) difficult to watch. It also reminded me of something I wrote fifteen years ago now (hard to believe it's been that long) but wich still retains its relevance: What I Have Learned From the Twentieth Century
What I Have Learned From the Twentieth Century
With thanks to Schoolmasters Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Mao Tse-Tung and Pol Pot
From the Liberty Pole
June, 1999
by Mike Vanderboegh
As an amateur historian of this sad century whose time is almost up, I would like to reflect upon six lessons I have learned in my studies. Folks who wish to live free and prosperous in the next century would do well to understand the failures of the past.
LESSON NO. 1: If a bureaucrat, or a soldier sent by a bureaucrat, comes to knock down your door and take you someplace you do not want to go because of who you are or what you think -- kill him. If you can, kill the politician who sent him. You will likely die anyway, and you will be saving someone else the same fate. For it is a universal truth that the intended victims always far outnumber the tyrant's executioners. Any nation which practices this lesson will quickly run out of executioners and tyrants, or they will run out of it.
LESSON NO. 2: If a bureaucrat, or a soldier sent by a bureaucrat, comes to knock down your door and confiscate your firearms -- kill him. The disarmament of law-abiding citizens is the required precursor to genocide.
LESSON NO. 3: If a bureaucrat tells you that he must know if you have a firearm so he can put your name on a list for the common good, or wants to issue you an identity card so that you be more easily identified -- tell him to go to hell. Registration of people and firearms is the required precursor to the tyranny which permits genocide. Bureaucrats cannot send soldiers to doors that are not on their list.
LESSON NO. 4: Believe actions, not words. Tyrants are consummate liars. Just because a tyrant is "democratically elected" does not mean he believes in democracy. Reference Adolf Hitler, 1932.
And just because a would-be tyrant mouths words of reverence to law and justice, or takes a solemn oath to uphold a constitution, does not mean be believes such concepts apply to him. Reference Bill Clinton, among others.
The language of the lie is just another tool of killers. A sign saying "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Makes You Free) posted above an execution camp gate does not mean that anybody gets out of there alive, and a room labeled "Showers" does not necessarily make you clean. Bill Clinton notwithstanding, the meaning of "is" is plain when such perverted language gets you killed. While all tyrants are liars, it is true that not all political liars are would-be tyrants -- but they bear close watching. And keep your rifle handy.
LESSON NO. 5: Our constitutional republic as crafted by the Founders is the worst form of government in the world, except when compared to all the others. Capitalism, as well, is a terrible way to run an economy, except when compared to all other economic systems. Unrestrained democracy is best expressed as three wolves and a sheep sitting down to vote on what to have for dinner. The horrors of collectivism in all its forms -- socialism, communism, national socialism, fascism -- have been demonstrated beyond dispute by considerable wasteful trial and bloody error. Leaders such as Bill Clinton who view the Constitution as inconvenient and ignorable are harbingers of tyranny.
LESSON NO. 6: While nations do not always get the leaders they deserve, they always get the leaders they tolerate. And anyone who tells you that "It Can't Happen Here" is whistling past the graveyard of history. There is no "house rule" that bars tyranny coming to America. History is replete with republics whose people grew complacent and descended into imperial butchery and chaos. Dictators count on the assistance of people who are complacent, fearful, envious, lazy and corrupt. While there is no "Collective guilt" to the crimes of a regime (all such crimes being committed by specific criminal individuals), there is certainly "collective responsibility" -- especially for those who watch the criminals at work without objecting or interfering.
A French journalist of the last century wrote: "I must speak out, for I will not be an accomplice." Evil tyrants require, indeed they depend upon, willing and unwilling accomplices -- good people who would never think of harming a soul themselves. Lenin called such people "useful idiots."
De Tocqueville observed that "America is great because America is good. When America ceases to be good, she will cease to be great." As related in the Old Testament, God judged nations based upon the immorality and criminality of their leaders. Entire peoples were scourged because of their failure to remove corrupt leaders.
As we move from the Twentieth Century into the Twenty-First, we should take care to remember the ancient story of Sodom and Gommorrah. If we wish to avoid the butchery of the Twentieth Century and the righteous judgment of the God of our antiquity, we would do well to keep our Bibles, our Constitution and our firearms close at hand.
As I said, I think the piece stands up fairly well after fifteen years, but Kurt Hofmann managed to to do better than that, I think, when he distilled the problem and the solution to its essence: "Remember: Evil exists because good men don't kill the government officials committing it." Le Rafle reminds us all of the eternal truth of that.

Saturday, May 24, 2014

Santa Barbara killer’s family ‘staunchly anti-gun’

The narcissistic, privileged son of a Hollywood director, who went on a shooting rampage Friday night in Isla Vista that left seven people, including the attacker, dead and another seven wounded, after evidently killing three people at his home, came from a family that believes in citizen disarmament, the Associated Press is reporting.

“He is a good person . . . Was a good person. He was just misunderstood.” Now we don't have to misunderstand him any longer. Whose fault is that exactly?

Wannabe Gangsters Just 'Tryin' to Eat' When Killed During Break-In

“The Justin Beiber of Ranger Posers”

Forwarded to me by a friend: "Ryan Payne the fake Ranger at Bundy Ranch." Ranger, schmanger. All I KNOW from personal observation is that he's a sociopath.

If you like your witch doctor, you can keep your witch doctor.

Witch doctors arrested after albino woman murdered 'for potions' in Tanzania.
This is hardly a new phenomenon, as Jonathan Turley noted almost five years ago.

Christie gets to decide whether he wants to run for president in the GOP or Democrat party primaries.

Bill limiting gun magazines sent to Christie.
If some reader will kindly forward me a list of the New Jersey traitors in the house and senate who voted for this legislation, I already have the addresses to go with them. I'd like to counsel them upon the folly of their ways in my own friendly, avuncular Dutch uncle style.

Another self-discrediting blow to the rule of law (such as it is).

The rule of man reigns: Judge Rules Conyers Can Be on Primary Ballot Despite Not Meeting Signature Requirements.

As the numbers of out-of-control cop stories pile up . . .

A long-time reader and supporter recalls this: N.J. doctor supplied steroids to hundreds of law enforcement officers, firefighters.

Neo-Marxist's numbers don't add up.

No. Really? Go figure.

Author, Hollywood screenwriter and veteran says he could kill again over guns

Yeah, well, he ain't the only one. But then, I don't think he gets that.

Gun Control Straw Men Never Die, They Just Go To MSNBC

Chris Hayes competing for the Julius Streicher award.

Ex-ATF agent who lied about informant fund gets 1 year

U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman imposed the maximum term under a federal sentencing range of six to 12 months, saying she was “taken aback” by the prosecution’s recommendation of three months of imprisonment and three months of home detention with electronic monitoring.

Friday, May 23, 2014

DOJ Admits Fast & Furious Docs Should Be Released Under FOIA After Indefinitely Delaying JW’s Suit

Can a federal agency trying to cover up wrongdoing lawfully withhold documents under executive privilege—reserved for the president of the United States—when the records don’t even involve the commander-in-chief? That’s the question being argued before a federal court in Washington D.C. and the ruling could have a widespread impact on how government unscrupulously hides information from the public as well as Congress. The feud involves a congressional committee investigating a disastrous Obama administration experiment that allowed Mexican drug traffickers to obtain U.S.-sold weapons that later ended up in a multitude of crime scenes, including the murder of a Border Patrol agent.

Federal court: police can break down door and seize guns without warrant or charges

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that it is not a violation of constitutional rights if police break down a citizen’s door, search the home, and confiscate firearms, so long that they believe it is in the citizen’s best interest.

Ohio's DeWine asked to ensure open carry training after shooting jokes by police

Those attitudes included laughing about double-tapping the open carriers, a term gun owners recognize as the placing of two shots into a target in quick succession. That recalls a similar comment made years back by a California police detective laughing about shooting open carriers and then getting two weeks off, and further laughing because the legal climate in California denies concealed carry permits to so many.

ATF's rifle sales reporting requirement shenanigans look stranger all the time

But alert reader Chris Meissen noticed another qualifier that was in the original proposal, and missing in the current one. In this proposal, there is no mention that the multiple sales have to be to the same purchaser, as is explicitly stated in the original proposal. In other words, if the BATFE gets its way, it can demand sales details from every gun store that sells two or more so-called "assault weapons" in a five-day period--no matter if each is sold to separate purchasers.

"Only Ones" do a deadly beat-down on Florida's "paradise island."

Autopsy of man who died after Key West arrest shows 10 cracked ribs.

Poor babies. Shoulda thought of that before you passed that Intolerable Act.

New York Lawmakers Complain Alabama’s Remington Win Due in Part to ‘Gun-Friendly’ Political Climate

But, but, how will the secret political policemen of the FBI fabricate cases anymore? Putting a crimp in the American Stasi's traditional way of lying.

FBI, federal agencies to record interrogations.
The Justice Department has made a major reversal of its policy and now presumes that the FBI, the DEA, the ATF, and the USMS all begin video and audio recording of suspect interrogations from July 11. In addition, the memo recommends that agents and their supervisors determine other areas of the investigation process where recordings will help improve the documentation trail.
This policy reversal has been welcomed by defense attorneys as well. They claim that the earlier system of the FBI and other federal agencies using one agent to interrogate the suspect and another to record it on paper lead to many false testimonies and incorrect verdicts. The defense attorneys claimed that when the suspects denied that they had made the statements that the prosecution attributed to them, they faced a situation where the jury was likely to believe the two federal agents against the word of a single suspect.
As I have written before and discussed at some length in other places, the FBI's use of hand-written 302's as the only record of interviews puts you at an inherent disadvantage. It is automatically their version of what you say that gets memorialized and no jury will believe that TWO FBI agents will concoct a narrative to prove their case. Yeah, right. I mean, the tape recorder was only invented in the 1930s. You have to ask yourself why it wasn't until now that the federal police agencies didn't make use of it. The answer of course is that to do so would have cramped their style in the creation of official lies.
I can only presume that next we will see "wag the dog" CGI-altered records as the next predictable step, since secret policemen will always find a way to protect the bureaucracy.

Collectivist cannibal zombies gonna eat yo momma! Or so says Paul Ehrlich anyway.

Despite the fact that this “oblivion,” never came about, he still pushed alarmist predictions. Ehrlich claimed that scarcity of resources will get so bad that humans will need to drastically change our eating habits and agriculture. Instead, we will soon begin asking “is it perfectly okay to eat the bodies of your dead because we’re all so hungry?” He added that humanity is “moving in that direction with a ridiculous speed.” And clearly, this man knows “ridiculous.”
And these guys wonder why we won't take them seriously? SERIOUSLY?

Mother Jones doubles down on disinformation.

"WRETCHED Mother Jones Runs With THOROUGHLY DEBUNKED ‘Spit Piece’ on US Gun Owners."

"Mao Tse-tung — The Unknown Story of How the Chairman led China to Communist Hell."

Mao — The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. This one looks like it will be a good read.
Among the many revelations, Mao — The Unknown Story depicts and documents Chairman Mao as the brutal monster he really was; how Mao desolated his own country and exterminated his own people, party cadres and impoverished peasants alike, even whole Red Army regiments. Mao committed in his blind rage whatever crimes were necessary to attain and preserve supreme political power. "Democracy," "justice," "equality," " fraternity," "freedom" were just words to be used for propaganda purposes, not ideals to be pursued by Chinese communists.

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Thanks. It's such an inadequate word, isn't it?

In her SWAT Magazine article on my smuggling efforts the other day, Claire Wolfe paid me this high compliment.
Mike has been under constant treatment for cancer, a heart condition, and a host of related health problems. He has kept going through sufferings and debility that would have sent lesser people (including, emphatically, me) into idle self-pity.
The thing is, it is undeserved. It is, in fact, day by day, more or less untrue. Some days I get up and wish desperately to just lay back down. Some days I have to. Hardly a day goes by that I don't fail to accomplish some task I have set out for myself, which is a defection from the faith that y'all place in me. I am as prone as anybody to self pity and it was in one of those "troughs of despond" the other day that I received an email from a new reader in Georgia, Bob, whose kind words proved just the ticket to get me going again. I responded:
"Bless you for your kind words, Bob. You have no idea how well timed they are -- just when I needed them. This is a spiritual war we fight as much as anything and your email arrived at a particular low point when I have started letting some of the crap to wear me down. You remind me that I have many friends out there and that they certainly outnumber my enemies. Thanks. I will now "drink water and drive on," as my son says. . . Anyway, thanks for the kind words. I needed them."
And I certainly did. God has a way of giving us what we need. But it is important to remember that what we need is different than what we want. I repeat that lesson to myself every day I go to the post office box. "Remember," I tell myself, "what I need, not what I want." It is a lesson in humility that, whenever I need it, God is close at hand to remind me of.
The other day, He brought me up short with another reminder. Subscription donations have been a bit thin this month, but some folks send what they can on a more-or-less regular basis and you begin to count on that. Richard is one of those regular supporters. Just like clockwork every month he has sent in a subscription donation. Yesterday I got another envelope from him and I expected the same. The only thing is, it was a short note apologizing to me that he couldn't send any this month because he lost his part-time job. Get that? HE was apologizing to ME. Talk about an undeserved respect. Talk about a lesson in humility. Here I was wondering about me, and he lost his job and felt bad that he couldn't send more right now and felt it necessary to explain it to me. I am the one who should be apologizing to him, for not accomplishing more with the resources that he sent.
Talk about the lesson of the widow's mite. It floored me. There are others who are regular contributors. You know who you are. Some of you send money when you can, some send in-kind contributions like brass, some send magazines to smuggle, some send just words -- but what words. Some of you are living in places that we only half-jokingly refer to as "behind enemy lines" now, risking much more than I do on a daily basis just to exercise your God-given and inalienable rights that the rest of us take for granted. It is so inadequate, to try to thank the folks who make your work possible. The folks whose mere words sometimes perk you up and keep you going -- who make you realize how important it is to ignore the petty inconveniences, the personal attacks, and keep going no matter what. They make you realize that it is not about you -- that in the grand scheme of things what matters is all of us. What matters is the fight. What matters is to stand, together.
Holding Richard's note in my hands, I felt so selfish, so inadequate to the task, yet so determined at the same time to live up to the faith that folks have in our common cause. I just wanted to let you know -- all of you -- how important your words and support are. To the extent I get anything done, I would tell Claire Wolfe, it is because of y'all. If that's courage, it's a common courage that derives from you, and you seem to have it in greater supply than I do. I am fortunate that God allows me to tap into it when I really need it. Thanks. It's such an inadequate word, isn't it? Thanks.
May God bless and keep you, Richard. May God bless and keep you all, as back into the fight we go.

Puke alert.

This was merely predictable: NRA endorses McConnell in Ky. Primary.
THIS email I just received makes me want to puke:
Friend,
As you know, my friend and colleague Mitch McConnell has just won the Kentucky Republican Primary and is poised to become the next Majority Leader of the United States Senate. Mitch has boldly led the Republicans in the Senate against Barack Obama’s liberal agenda and he needs your help to keep the fight going against Harry Reid, President Obama, and their hand-picked candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes in November. The momentum gained by Republicans here in Kentucky will allow us to fire Harry Reid, vote to repeal Obamacare, and make Mitch the next Majority Leader of the United States Senate.
With Mitch McConnell in the Senate, Kentucky is leading America. He is fighting for our Eastern Kentucky coal families against Barack Obama’s War on Coal. He is fighting for our small-business owners burdened by the crippling costs of Obamacare and high taxes. He is fighting for our middle-class families who are hurting under the failed policies of the Obama Administration. Your financial support is crucial to keep Mitch fighting for Kentucky families. Please contribute what you can to his Republican Victory Moneybomb today.
You can always count on Mitch to stand strong for our conservative principles. Not only does he have my full support, he is also endorsed by the American Conservative Union, National Right to Life, and the National Rifle Association.
My Republican colleagues in the Senate are rallying behind Mitch because we know his leadership has kept our party strong and united. Not only did he ensure every Senate Republican voted against the disaster that was Obamacare, but he has led us in the fight to repeal it and helped stop the liberals in their tracks last year when they tried to force gun control on the American people. As conservatives, we must unite around Mitch and send a strong message to the Barack Obama liberals who want to impose their values on us in Kentucky. The liberals have made him their number one target this November because they know they know he is Barack Obama’s biggest obstacle in the Senate. I am committed to backing Mitch all the way to a great Republican victory this November.
I hope you will join him now by contributing to his Republican Victory Moneybomb. While President Obama needs Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky and the nation need Mitch McConnell.
Best,
Rand Paul
U.S. Senator - Kentucky

Logistics: Mustang Munitions

The other day when I was wasting time (and the gate fee) looking for newbie equipage at the gun show I chanced upon a sales table for a local ammunition company I'd never heard of: Mustang Munitions. The folks at the table invited me to visit them at their store front in Pelham, a suburb of Birmingham, to view their operation and I did so yesterday as I had business that took me in that direction anyway.
I dropped in without an advance appointment on Terry Ware, Vice President & Director of Operations for Mustang and he kindly gave me a complete tour of the facility. For a small but up-and-coming operation I was quite impressed. The production shop was scrupulously clean and orderly (as it should be from a safety and quality control POV, but them I have seen some that weren't). Mustang operates three Dillon 1050s pretty much all the time, producing a mix of rifle and pistol reloads for the public and law enforcement. They have been open at the Pelham location since February of this year.
Mr. Ware took me through the entire process they use, from receipt of the brass and components to finished product and it was all quite professional. I am looking forward to testing some of their product in the near future and I will let you know how that turns out.