Charlize Theron Convinces New Boyfriend Sean Penn to Get Rid of His Guns, Anderson Cooper Buys Sculpture of Weapons for $1.4 Million.
A wise man once told me that "most men will do almost anything for (feline reference deleted)." I guess he was right.
Tip of the boonie hat to Keep and Bear Arms for this one: Gun owner unarmed, unwelcome in Maryland.
I'm starting to regret using the Gaelic phrase meaning "kiss me arse" to the faux Irishman Governor O'Malley the other day. I should have found something stronger.
This article is about tactics, plain and simple. Nothing more, nothing less. It will be frank, open, and honest. Nothing herein is construed to malign the bravery and exploits of anyone in any operation, anywhere, at any time. It comes from a former enlisted Marine, so take it for what it’s worth – a former enlisted Marine’s view of Operation Red Wings.
Much food for thought here.
Also see: Notes From HPS.
Readers will recall my question for Gov. O'Malley during the Toys for Totalitarians campaign:
No doubt your attacks on the traditional liberties of American firearm owners are no impediment to success in any Democrat primary. If there’s one thing you collectivists agree upon it is disarming those who disagree with you politically. But just how do you think that will play in the general election? So, I look at your happy face as you signed a bill subverting the constitutional rights of your fellow Marylanders and I ask myself, “Why is this idiot smiling?”
Now he's playing coy, but the thirst for power is still evident: O'Malley declines to answer 2016 question
Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, often mentioned as a Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, declined on Sunday to talk about his future political plansO’Malley said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that “it’s an honor to even be mentioned” among potential contenders for the 2016 nomination. But the governor indicated it was far too early to make a decision - and declined to give a timeline for making a decision.“Sure, I’ve said I’m thinking about it,” O’Malley said. “But right now, I’m primarily focused on what I need to do for the good people of our state.”
Another clue to his national ambitions? Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley on Sunday declined to criticize New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie over the bridge controversy that has engulfed the Republican’s administration and called into question his prospects for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016.
Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time."Holmes: "That was the curious incident."-- "Silver Blaze", Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, 1892.
As can be seen above, 'The dog that didn't bark' is an expression from a Sherlock Holmes mystery. This by now well known observation referred to an important clue that led to identifying the criminal. The killer entered and left the estate grounds one night but without the guard dog barking an alarm at the intruder's presence as expected. From this non—event Holmes deduced that the dog must have known the perpetrator.
The odd thing about the Toys for Totalitarians campaign is the almost total absence of both press coverage and official reaction from the recipients in the four affected states and the District of Columbia. Apart from Connecticut, where there was some small coverage by the Red Queen here and here and the official response (see here and here), the silence has been bloody deafening.
Even odder is the silence from the usual suspects in the citizen disarmament lobby such as CSGV, the government-monopoly-of-force advocates, who are usually so quick to trumpet my "seditionist" and "insurrectionist" moves.
Of the media recipients, it is true, only David Gregory received his and I didn't really expect him to react. Rachel Madcow's parcel was refused and came back and Media Matters' arrived at their PO Box on 30 December and has been showing "available for pickup" since then. They really don't check their mail that often, apparently.
Yet even the so-called "gun rights" media has been ignoring the story, apart from David Codrea, Kurt Hofmann and Anthony Martin.
I wouldn't have expected the "prags" to cover it, of course. I have always made them nervous and occasionally, apoplectic. But there are others who I would have expected some coverage out of. Nada.
As far as the politicians, most of them (especially Hickenlooper) should be nervous about the local and national politics of pursuing me. Malloy's irritation evidently exceeded his national ambitions, and there is a rumor (and rumor only) that O'Malley is highly pissed at me for telling him to "kiss me arse" in Gaelic and that pursuant to his ire, a grand jury may be opened on me in Maryland next week. (Again, this is unconfirmed.)
But for the rest, the dogs simply aren't barking. Indeed, in CSGV's case they must be quite frustrated NOT being able to bark. So you have to ask yourself, why aren't they barking?
A friend of mine posited that this is because the campaign of armed civil disobedience to these latest tyrannical state laws represents something that, to use his words, "makes the gun grabbers piss their pants." He believes that they are used to the political and propaganda game and the traditional rules that govern that game. "What they can't stand . . . what they fear most . . . is that they are going to run into people who not only refuse to play the game but threaten to tip over the game board and dare them to do anything about it." Another friend commented, "They are like the Wizard of OZ and don't want anybody to pull back the curtain" to expose how ineffectual they really are when faced with the Law of Unintended Consequences that might have personal ramifications for them.
"They aren't paying attention to you publicly precisely because you scare them to death privately," said another. "They don't want anybody else to get the idea and put it (armed civil disobedience and smuggling) into practice."
So the citizen disarmament dogs aren't barking. What can be the excuse for folks who are supposed to be on our side is beyond me. It reminds me of the early days of Fast and Furious, when the same people had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the story.
A very polite and mildly amused Jefferson County deputy just came to my door to give me a message. A certain Detective Goocher at the Connecticut State Police wishes me to call him. ASAP. The note gives me his phone number. Obviously he hasn't read my blog post of this morning. Or perhaps he has and he just doesn't want to put anything down in writing.
It just occurred to me. Since Governor Malloy hasn't answered my letter directly, do you suppose I can have my sheriff call the CT state police to give the governor a message to call me?
LATER: I wonder what it is that is so pressing that Detective Goocher has to waste the law enforcement resources of Jefferson County, Alabama, just to make sure his imperial demand to call him is delivered? Not that my curiosity is that aroused to place a long-distance call at my expense to find out. Perhaps he'll finally get the message of this morning and email me.
Much later: David Codrea comments on "The Hunt for the SS Sipsey." Perhaps we should break out in a good German drinking song.
Abetted by their familiars in the government-run press, the ATF is the middle of a. some of the worst publicity they've seen since Fast and Furious; b. a charm offensive to change the subject; c. both.
The correct answer is "C."
When even the most anti-gun Democrat senators start bad-mouthing the ATF, even they know they have trouble: Baldwin says ATF stings "totally inexcusable,"
So what does ATF director B. "Toad" Jones do? Why he finds a friendly venue to chat about "leadership" of all things. "Training a new generation of special agents."
The article starts out with bilge like this and goes downhill from there:
Q. How would you describe your leadership style?A. I went into the Marine Corps after law school, and I draw on the core values that the Marine Corps instills in you that are very relevant to leading people and organizations. Those are simple, fundamental concepts like courage and integrity, being engaged and exercising good judgment, and having bearing or the military’s command presence. That has to be tempered with confidence in what you’re doing, being knowledgeable about your organization’s history and its culture, and being mission oriented. ATF is a new experience for me because most of my non-Marine Corps experience has been as a prosecutor. I truly believe in ATF’s mission of public safety and justice, and that makes it easy for me to apply these leadership traits and principles.
ATF agents who have worked with Jones call him a politician and a bully who brooks no dissent in underlings and yet possesses a slavish ass-kissing demeanor to higher ups. He has been described as the "Nuremberg Man" who would "execute his own mother if Eric Holder told him to."
In the mean time, anti-firearm Democrat pols eager to change the subject want you to remember that the ATF is all about Kevin Costner. No, really.
'Untouchable' idea -- building named for Eliot Ness
Illinois’ U.S. senators proposed today that a major federal law-enforcement building in the nation’s capital be named for Eliot Ness, the Prohibition-era crime fighter who helped bring down Chicago gangster Al Capone.The headquarters of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, built in recent years, would be called the Eliot Ness ATF Building under the senators’ resolution.The Chicago-born Ness is immortalized in the TV series “The Untouchables” and the 1987 film starring Kevin Costner. Capone, once Public Enemy No. 1, was convicted and imprisoned on tax violations after Ness and his team of federal Prohibition agents raided the gangster’s breweries and arrested dozens of his men.
Mind you, the real Eliot Ness had a career that was less-than-stellar. As Wikipedia reports:
The efforts of Ness and his team had little impact on Capone's operations. Ness had almost nothing to do with the IRS prosecuting Capone for income tax evasion, which led to Capone's downfall. . .Unfortunately, his otherwise remarkably successful career in Cleveland withered gradually. Cleveland critics targeted his divorce, his high-profile social drinking, and his conduct in a car accident. . .Ness remarried in 1939, to illustrator Evaline Michelow. The Nesses moved to Washington, D.C. in 1942 where he worked for the federal government, directing the battle against prostitution in communities surrounding military bases, where venereal disease was a serious problem. Later he made a number of forays into the corporate world, all of which failed from his lack of business acumen. In 1944, he left to become chairman of the Diebold Corporation, a security safe company based in Ohio.After his second divorce and third marriage, he ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Cleveland in 1947, after which he was expelled from Diebold in 1951.[11] In the aftermath, Ness began drinking more heavily and spending his free time in bars telling (often exaggerated) stories of his law enforcement career. He also spent himself into debt. Ness was forced into taking various odd jobs to earn a living, including as an electronics parts wholesaler, a clerk in a bookstore, and selling frozen hamburger patties to restaurants.
Even so, the legendary Eliot Ness has always been the patron saint of the ATF. They celebrate his birthday with dinners and golf tournaments and when the Costner movie came out it was required viewing for all new recruits.
As I wrote back in 2011:
De Palma's film, like most Hollywood "true stories" plays fast and loose with the truth of Ness' efforts to bring Al Capone and his mob to justice. No matter. It was Costner's Ness -- pure good -- versus Robert de Niro's Capone -- pure evil. With great supporting actors like Sean Connery and a slam-bang script, it was a hit -- especially with ATF agents. There was only one problem: the Untouchables in the movie were not law enforcement officers, they were avenging angels unrestrained by law.Toward the end of the movie, after Costner's Ness has shot fleeing felons, thrown a suspect in custody off a roof to his death and blackmailed a judge, he confesses: "I have foresworn myself. I have broken every law I have sworn to uphold, I have become what I beheld and I am content that I have done right!"The ATF agents who watched it ate that sentiment up. And after it came out in VHS they would watch it again and again, internalizing the lesson that the ends justify the means. Over and over they would watch it. When a new guy came into the field office, they would ask, "Have you seen The Untouchables? No? Well, I'll loan you my copy. It's great." Over and over they would cheer as Costner and Connery used the "Chicago Way" on Capone's cartoonish bad guys. And gradually, in the minds of the field agents of the ATF, life began to imitate art.
Oh, and what date is Eliot Ness' birthday? Why the 19th of April, of course. That is why the Davidians died that day. The FBI made the immolation a present to their little wayward brothers in the ATF. That is why they raised an ATF flag with four gold stars (representing the four ATF agents killed in the initial raid) on the flagpole while the building was still burning. It was a birthday present to the ATF and it carried another message to any future folks who might try to defend themselves against the leviathan: "You may kill us, but we will kill you at a ratio of twenty to one. We will kill your old men, your women, your children. We will burn down your homes and your churches and wipe you out utterly. And no one will stop us."
And they were content that they had done right. The ATF wasn't the only federal agency that found The Untouchables persuasive propaganda. So when they want to change the name of the ATF headquarters in DC it is because they want you to remember Kevin Costner, not Eliot Ness.
The FBI gift to the ATF on Eliot Ness' birthday. The ATF flag flies over the remnants of Mount Carmel.
