Probe of silencers leads to web of Pentagon secrets

Somebody's black op got buggered.

"How hackers took over my computer."

We hear about hacking every day – but are individuals really vulnerable? Sophie Curtis volunteered to find out.

Latest from Sharyl Attkisson: Polio-like Illness Claims Sixth Life in U.S.

A Michigan toddler has become the sixth patient to die of Enterovirus D-68 (EV-D68) in the past two months. Madeline Reid was just 21-months old when she passed away at Children’s Hospital of Michigan Friday afternoon. A hospital official says the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) confirmed her EV-D68 infection after she arrived at the hospital for advanced medical care.

Well, the show today was a wash for me.

Didn't sell the SKS I was hoping to get rid of to float some of the CT expenses. Did meet a few great readers and chatted for a while -- both yesterday and today -- although not as many as I had hoped. The chief fault for that, I'm sure, is the cluster coital situation around the Civic Center -- competing events, traditional free parking blocked off because of construction. That left the parking decks which cost $8 a day (plus a similar amount to get in). $16 is a heckuva lot to ask somebody to pay for a gun show. And that's if they could even get close to the paid parking through the "save-the-mammaries" breast cancer walk yesterday.

I want to particularly thank Mr. K from the Huntsville area who braved all of the STM crowd to chat with me.

The show was, despite all the many difficulties, well attended yesterday although today was very thin. Prices overall were down, availability was up -- except, of course, for .22 Long Rifle. Noticed a LOT of ammunition cans of all types and sizes being sold. I picked up a couple of German Kochgeschirr 31 pattern aluminum mess kits for cheap yesterday for some newbies who needed them. (I have always thought the German pattern was far superior to the GI meat cans.)

Was only able to find 100 pieces of .357 brass for $15 at the whole show, which I gritted my teeth and bought because we're getting ready to load that caliber on the smaller press but are short of brass. (For some reason we have plenty of .38s but no one is leaving .357s at the ranges where I scrounge. If anybody is holding some and is willing to trade some other caliber for it, please drop me an email at GeorgeMason1776ATaolDOTcom.)

Three other frustrations at the show. I have a friend who asked me to sell 9 new-in-the-box FNC steel 30 round AR type mags. I thought they were fairly priced at $20.00 each or all 9 for $150.00 but didn't get a glimmer of interest. Were they over-priced?

Another frustration: I have been looking for wire-bound USGI ammunition crates like the one below to fit M2A1 "fifty cal" cans and the larger PA-108 SAW cans. I used to find them easily but are unobtanium these days. Anybody have any sitting around we might work a deal on? I need a couple of each size to finish a project.

Final frustration. I am looking for Hungarian 20 round AMD-65 magazines and there were NONE to be had at the show. Anybody got any spares we can do a deal on?

I'll be at the gun show again today, at least until early afternoon.

I'll be at the tables H5 & H6, selling stuff to raise money for CT.

"Of course it was Rahm Emanuel's idea. . . 'Never let a good crisis go to waste.'" Clinton Presidential Library document dump details an aborted legal attack on the militias in the wake of the OKC bombing and what they were REALLY afraid of if they did.

"You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." -- Rahm Emanuel.

I noted in my comments last night on this article, that I would post the documents I received from another source on Scribd. Exhausted as I was from a day at the gun show, I didn't pick up on the fact that they were already posted here.

As the article notes, in the aftermath of the OKC bombing elements within the Clinton administration wanted to use the excuse to suppress the constitutional militia movement by measures that would have demanded -- with all the force of the federal government backing it up -- that we publish our memberships lists, required us to register as "paramilitary organizations" with the Feds and to get permission from them before doing any training.

On 6 Oct 1995, the Clinton political operative Dick Morris wrote in a memo to White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, as well as Deputy Chiefs of Staff Erskine Bowles and Harold Ickes:

“The public overwhelmingly supports a significant expansion in the FBI’s ability to investigate militia groups. If you and the Justice Department believe such an expansion would be in the public interest, I would recommend that we go ahead with it with a high profile announcement.”

A careful reading of the documents, however, indicates that by that time the idea was long dead, killed by resistance at the FBI and DOJ as well as by the brutal description of the "realpolitik" of the power grab's likely unintended consequences by then White House counsel Abner Mikva in a 25 May letter to Panetta, Ickes and Rahm Emanuel, then serving as Assistant to the President for Political Affairs. Emanuel was the architect of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban that was widely credited (including by Bill Clinton himself) with costing the Dems the 1994 midterm elections and returning the GOP to control in the House.

The proposal obviously scared the political crap out of Mikva. In letter from Jennifer O'Connor, who worked for Panetta, to Janice Enright, assistant to Ickes at the time, there is this:

The Justice Department has stopped working on the terrorism question, Thy say this is because Ab (Abner Mikva) instructed them that this is not something that should be on paper. Justice says they are caught between two White House offices saying opposite things and they need us to sort it out.

The letter was written the morning of 25 May. Mikva's letter followed later that afternoon. It is worth citing in full:

SUBJECT: · Regulation of Militias or Terrorist Groups

Two weeks ago, you asked White House Counsel to provide a "quick" legal judgment as to the constitutionality of several proposals to regulate militias. Our provisional opinion was reflected in a memo of May 10, which was forwarded to Leon and a copy of which is attached. To summarize, we concluded that one of the proposals--to require militias to publish membership lists-was almost surely unconstitutional, while others--such as to require militias to register with the federal government--raised less serious constitutional issues, which probably could be surmounted.

More recently,' you asked DOJ to provide, by this weekend, definitive judgments about the constitutionality of several similar proposals to regulate "organizations that support terrorism." These questions may yield different answers from those that we gave with respect to regulating "militias." But, in any event, it is not possible for DOJ to give definitive answers to these questions quickly, since many of the questions are ones of first impression and will require surveying a number of relevant but not dispositive constitutional cases and then determining their likely application to the proposals now under review. Given the time and effort this will require, both our office and the lawyers at DOJ thought it would be advisable at the outset to share our policy views about the proposals under review.

All of the lawyers analyzing these proposals (in this office and at DOJ) strongly believe it is a serious mistake--as a policy but especially as a political matter-~to impose militia controls of the type now being discussed, even if they would be constitutional.

* As a policy matter, such controls are of doubtful necessity, given that 41 states already have laws that ban either the creation of private military organizations or private paramilitary training that threatens civil disorder. Nor does it seem likely that the proposed federal controls would enhance federal law enforcement, given DOJ's reinterpretation of the terrorism investigation guidelines and Congress' expected passage of an anti-terrorism bill. Rather, the most·likely effect of the proposed controls would be to greatly increase fears about government encroachment on individual freedom and thus, paradoxically, to fuel public sympathy for militia organizations. A recent Gallup poll found that 39% of Americans already believe the federal government "has become so large and powerful it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens."

* It follows, in our judgment, that as a political matter the proposed controls would be extremely ill-advised. The President's anti-terrorism legislation has already brought about an unprecedented alliance on legal issues between groups like the ACLU and the NRA, who have issued a joint public statement warning that an overreaction to the bombing will jeopardize "basic freedoms." If the President were now to call for registration of militias, for publication of their membership lists, or for reporting of their activities, he would likely prompt these and other groups on the left and right to join together in even stronger opposition, with renewed calls for investigation of Waco and so on. A recent Los Angeles Times poll found that, among those who owned guns or who described themselves as "conservative" or "white fundamentalist Christians," substantially more people ,were "concerned that government would excessively restrict the average person's civil liberties" than were worried that government "would fail to enact strong new anti-terrorism legislation." Only respondents describing themselves as "liberals" disagreed.

Thus far, we believe the President's statements and actions in the wake of the Oklahoma City tragedy have placed him just where he should be: a) with a clear record of responding to a new threat with sensible new policies, and b) with an equally clear record of sensitivity to the rights of individuals. We worry that further proposals of the type now being discussed could be depicted in very menacing terms to average citizens and could tip the political balance against the President.

Re-read this sentence for the money quote: "If the President were now to call for registration of militias, for publication of their membership lists, or for reporting of their activities, he would likely prompt these and other groups on the left and right to join together in even stronger opposition, with renewed calls for investigation of Waco and so on."

The GOP, remember, had just taken over the House and promised hearings into Waco and Ruby Ridge. THIS was what scared Mikva and the professionals at DOJ and the FBI. The last thing in the world they wanted was to provide more incentive to those who were trying to find out the truth about those massacres, large and small. The opposition to these unconstitutional measures did not come from any principled critique but from bald self-interest and fear of the truth being discovered.

I called a source who has long experience in DC and was there at the time. I asked him, "Given that even the Clintonistas knew by that time that McVeigh (their designated patsy) wasn't a militia guy, that there was no 'militia connection' to OKC -- that he had been asked to leave militia meetings -- why the crackdown on militias? Whose bad idea was this? Emanuel's?"

"Of course it was Rahm Emanuel's idea," he replied. "Why do you think he was copied on Mikva's letter? Mikva knew where this was coming from." And, I pointed out, by that time everybody understood that a previous bad idea of Emanuel's, the Assault Weapons Ban, had led them to staring the prize pig of disaster in the face -- a GOP congress sniffing for the truth of Waco, something they feared above all things.

I also pointed out that I had been told early on in the Fast and Furious investigation in 2011 that the idea for that fiasco had originated in Rahm Emanuel's office. "Hey," he replied ironically, if somewhat misquotingly, "'Never let a good crisis go to waste.'" "Too bad," I responded, "that somebody didn't sit on Rahm for THAT one." But, my source said, "By that time HE was White House Chief of Staff. He held all the keys to the kingdom." "Some kingdom," I replied. "Yeah," he agreed, "some kingdom."

War against Isis: US strategy in tatters as militants march on

Good description of what is, and isn't, happening on the ground. As the valiant Kurds fight on, they're being sold out by everyone who claims to be on their side, including us.

Attorney seeks to overturn federal machine gun ban on constitutional grounds

A Mississippi attorney established a crowdfunding page Thursday to overturn the federal machine gun ban. Since being established, the project appears well on its way to reaching its $50,000 goal.

Friday Document Dump: Clintons Wanted to Force Militias to Register With Federal Government

Folks I received pdf copies of the documents referred to in this article but haven't had time to go all the way through them. I will post them to Scribd sometime tomorrow.

The rise of the deafening-maximum-muzzle-flash eyebrow burners.

Are rifle-caliber pistols the ultimate backup guns?

If you don't hit your target you MIGHT scare it to death.

I'll be at the gun show this morning to raise money for the CT trip.

I'll be working tables H5 & H6

"Ferguson October." List of endorsing organizations.

Police Block Radio Communications as 'Ferguson October' Protests Kick Off And who is "Ferguson October"?

Well, they proclaim, "WE ARE IN A MOVEMENT MOMENT." And here's a list of endorsing organizations for "Ferguson October."

A new blog: The Zelman Partisans.

"Jews. Guns. No Compromise. No surrender."

Houses of the Unholy

Don’t look for any of this to make an impression on the cloistered fools, secular infiltrators and wolves in sheep’s clothing making up the “faith-based” monopoly of violence community. They’re busy preaching the gospel of worshiping an omnipotent state, one with the unchallengeable power to cast heretics, non-believers, apostates and infidels into a pit they’re first made to dig.

“I never said I would repeal the gun law . . . And I won’t.”

Malloy, Foley debate bipartisan gun law

Foley is an idiot, and an unprincipled idiot at that. What he should have asked Malloy is why, if the law is such a good idea, he isn't enforcing it until after the election? He should have pushed him on delaying the enforcement of the law until at least the Supreme Court rules. But no, he lets Malloy define the debate terms. What a moron.

‘Progressives’ blaming NRA over Ebola spread diverting blame from themselves

And with each new disastrous failure, the administration, Congressional Democrats and their Fourth Estate Fifth Columnist water carriers would be lying, covering up, making excuses, blaming political opponents, and tarring anyone calling out and protesting their deception -- and pointing to real solutions-- as racists and domestic threats. It’s what they do. And you can never appease them, never offer a compromise (that they won’t gobble up and then demand more), and never give an inch. Not on anything, and certainly not on guns.

Rough night, up late.

My apologies. I'll have more later. I will be be at the Birmingham Gun Show this weekend working a table to try and raise some money for the Connecticut trip. Hope to see some of you local Threepers there.

Bloomberg-Gates background check ploy first step to registration, confiscation

What happens with I-594 will be known in a few weeks. What’s known now is the Bloomberg machine plans to work the same formula in other states, and is scheming to topple them one-by-one.

"Smart Gun Owners Are Upgrading Their Concealed Carry."

"We live in 'interesting times.' I’ve talked to a number of gun owners in recent months who have told me that they are upgrading their choice of “everyday carry” (EDC) firearms as a result of the failure of the Obama Administration to even put up an appearance of attempting to stop terrorist and criminal threats. I’ve chosen to join them."

Great observation on the United States Army.

"Doctor, if you were organizing a regiment of infantry and it was to be the first regiment of infantry organized in the army, what would you call it?"

"What is this, Major?"

"It's a straight question, Jopp. What would you call it?"

"Well, I expect I'd be inclined to be logical. I'd probably call it the First Infantry."

"Precisely" -- Allshard nodded -- "but the powers that be didn't. They called it the Second Infantry. Now, if you will accept the fundamental fact that the First Infantry is officially the Second Infantry, you will understand everything else there is to understand about the Army" -- Allshard chuckled deep in his throat -- "because everything else becomes quite clear wen correlated with that fundamental fact. And that knowledge should keep you sane."

-- "The Devil At Crazy Man," by James Warner Bellah, first printed in The Saturday Evening Post, 21 June 1947 and later reprinted in a paperback collection of stories entitled Reveille, 1962.