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Showing posts with label police. Show all posts
Showing posts with label police. Show all posts

Sunday, July 14, 2024

On The Attempted Assassination of President Trump

The news was breaking around the time I sat down to work on yesterday's post and my first reaction was that first reports are always wrong and so it didn't make much sense to write a long post on it. Combined with my second reaction, which is what do I have to say that's more authoritative and a better reference than the dozens of posts that are out there already. 

That's still the case. 

I have the same concerns everyone talks about. How did this clown get to climb on a building that close to the president without being shot first? Why wasn't the building sealed off with guards on the roof or monitoring it such that as soon as a person with rifle was noted on the building, his head would have left his body right then and there - unlike after he shot Trump as happened. 

Like many of those who wrote about this, in this case Bayou Renaissance Man, I think that the FBI isn't to be trusted running an investigation of this. Peter Grant (BRM) also ran this:

Then there's this allegation.  It may be a complete fabrication - we don't know yet, and I've seen nothing to confirm it - but I'd love to know whether the shooter was observed by President Trump's security detail before he pulled the trigger, and if so, why none of them stopped him before he could do so.  Was permission to shoot denied?  If so, by whom?  And why?  And who told the leader(s) of his security team what to do under such circumstances?

Then there's this that I've seen several places - but I grabbed this copy from Daily Timewaster:

While I don't know Dan Bongino any more or less than any of these people, I've sure heard more sense out of him in the last few years than anybody working in the DOJ, or any of the law enforcement agencies. I'm with Bongino and Elon Musk, the head of the secret service needs to be unemployed, especially if the stories of the SS being all wrapped up in DEI are real. 

The real questions, of course, center on "what's next?" There's a famous meme of the right wing attitude to violence as a switch, that's either do nothing or kill everything. Has that switch been thrown? I suppose we shall see.

A distant second, third or 90th place to these goings on is that since Wednesday (the 10th) I've had a nasty cold. Lost my voice from all the coughing and sore throat. For most of the day, I thought I was getting over it, but as evening arrived, it started back up with a vengeance. I'll do my best to stay in the chair and blogging, but the old saying about colds is true. If you take all the magical vitamins and potions different people push, you'll get over it in a week. If you just fight it off with something like ibuprofen and Mucinex, you'll have it a whole seven days.



Monday, February 5, 2018

The Las Vegas Shooting And the Ammo Seller Arrest

It took me a while to tease out of this story what I think is going on.  The news story is summarized on Ammoland's website.  Their article pretty much echoes what little I saw on the national news.
Authorities have charged Douglas Haig, 55, of Mesa Arizona with selling “armor-piercing ammunition” to Las Vegas killer Stephen Paddock according to court documents acquired by the Associated Press. Haig works full time as an aerospace engineer and part-time as a manufacturer of reloaded ammunition.
The story said the local police recovered tracer rounds from Paddock's room, and traced them back to Haig by fingerprint.
According to the court documents police also found unfired armor-piercing rounds within the hotel room. Law enforcement was able to lift a fingerprint off one of the armor-piercing cartridges. Douglas Haig matched that print and was named a person of interest in the case after law enforcement found his name, and address on a box that was in Paddock's possession.
...
Haig and his lawyer, Marc Victor, held a press conference on Friday claiming that Haig was innocent. According to Haig, he met a well-dressed Paddock at a gun show in Phoenix, Arizona. He stated Paddock wanted to more [SIC] tracer rounds than he had on hand at the show, so Paddock called him a few days later to set up a sell of 720 tracer rounds at Haig's house.
....
Haig further claims that Paddock did not use his ammunition in the attack because he only sold him tracer rounds.
David Codrea links to the actual court document.  There is one charge.
Conspiracy to Manufacture and Sell Armor-Piercing Ammunition
(18 U.S.C. 371, 922(a)(7),(a)(8) and 924(a)(1)(D))
So the headlines typically shout he was arrested for manufacturing armor piercing rounds and never mention tracers.  I don't have to tell this audience that when the terms "armor piercing" and "tracers" are used, "one of these things is not like the other".  The police are saying he manufactured the armor-piercing rounds and got one of Haig's fingerprints off one, but Haig claims he never sold Paddock anything except tracer rounds.  The court filing says they were .308 rounds "metallurgically classified as armor piercing incendiary" by some definition.  Does that mean Haig considered them tracers but the FBI lab said they were armor piercing, too? 

The headlines also scream he was manufacturing armor piercing rounds without a license.  As far as I can tell, there is no special license for manufacturing armor piercing ammunition, or even tracers, just a general prohibition against manufacturing armor piercing ammo (for which there are too many definitions) unless it's for sale to the US government or export (18 U.S. Code § 922 A 7).  There's a general requirement to be licensed if manufacturing ammunition and reselling it.  It seems likely that Haig had what the IRS calls a hobby business, which is one that isn't the owner's livelihood, and that some people keep so they can successfully get reimbursed for the expenses of their hobby.  (I've known several people over the years that sold things they made to help pay for their hobbies).  All the sources say Haig is an "aerospace engineer" with the reload business on the side.  The ATF website shows the following:
Is a person who reloads ammunition required to be licensed as a manufacturer?

Yes, if the person engages in the business of selling or distributing reloads for the purpose of livelihood and profit.

No, if the person reloads only for personal use.
There's a long gap between selling for profit and selling for the purpose of one's livelihood.  This is a gray area: let's say someone shoots your reloads and likes them, so they offer to buy the components and give you a few bucks to do the work.  It's hard to argue that's making a profit.  How many people have arrangements with neighbors along the lines of "if you cut my lawn for me or shovel my driveway I'll give you a few bucks".  It's not livelihood, but if the BATFE wants to argue it's for profit, they have the infinite checkbook of the federal government.

I suspect Haig is in the gap between recovering the cost of his hobby and truly making it his livelihood and they're getting ready to hang him so that they can say "we got someone".

Douglas Haig

Of course, if any of you know more or better, the floor is yours!


Monday, May 22, 2017

A Dog Who Sniffs Memory Chips? Color Me Skeptical

A friend sent me this video from ATT.net of a dog from the FBI who can search out data memories.  I can't embed it here, so that's a link to the two minute NBC News video.  The summary is:
Iris is one of many on the force who have the ability to do something that seems unimaginable: to smell digital storage media — computer chips — making them invaluable for law enforcement.
Supposedly, the dog doesn't react to other electronics in the room, but can find hard drives, flash drives and other forms of memory storage.  The Daily Mail digs a little deeper into the story, saying,
US firm Tactical Detection K9 discovered it was possible to train the dogs to detect electronic devices after asking scientists to identify the common byproduct used in external hard drives, SD cards, IPads, iPods and USB memory sticks.

The dogs are trained to ignore other parts of the mobile phone or computer and not to touch the batteries.
While we know dogs have incredible sense of smell and can detect scents no human can possibly detect, this one leaves me with Looney Tunes style cloud of question marks over my head. To say the dog doesn't respond to other electronics but can spot a thumb drive just doesn't seem believable.

Let me point out that I never worked in the semiconductor business and never worked in packaging those components.  That said, I have the typical knowledge someone from the Hi-Reliability world will have.  I know about epoxy packages, ceramic packages, metal cans and much of what the packaging folks use.  I don't think it's possible for a dog to discriminate between a memory chip and any other integrated circuit because I think the same epoxy formulation is used in many places.  I know I get a lot of very smart readers including all sorts of engineers and I welcome your input, as I always do.  Are there some special compounds only used in memory packages?  According to some brief web searches, I'd say no.  There's no special mix for memory chips. 

In the video linked at the top, they show Iris the black lab detecting hard drives and flash drives.  Nice, but those are very different inside.  A hard drive generally has some memory chips in it like the flash drive has, but the flash drive doesn't have any of the large mechanical features the hard drive has: no magnetic platters, no motors, and so on.  What they didn't show or talk about is what happens when Iris is in a room with an iPod or audio amplifier or plain old system that doesn't have digital components but has epoxy packaged linear circuits.  This is the inside of a thumb drive.  In addition to the two larger ICs marked, the "USB mass storage controller device", and the "Flash memory chip", smaller epoxy packages are seen at the right in the bottom view.  Those appear to be transistors. 


Right now, most of our homes are literally stuffed with plastic-packaged ICs.  Not just our computers, tablets and phones, but many of our refrigerators, ranges, stoves, TVs, radios, air conditioners and on and on. Unless you've made a concerted effort to have no electronics in your house, you're surrounded by it. 

Iris would be running around like a Pointer with OCD, shouting, "there it is! ... there it is!... no... it's here!...no...here!".   In many situations, people verifying the performance have found that the dogs were being given subtle cues by their handlers that they were getting close to the things the trainers had planted and not really finding them by their own means.  I wonder if that's what's really going on here.  Why the FBI wouldn't be exaggerating the abilities of their dogs as a psyop against criminals, would they?  Can you imagine?


Sunday, October 30, 2016

UK Mail: Comey Sick of Stack of Resignations, Being Dissed By FBI

According to the Mail today, FBI Director Comey was essentially forced into his latest email reveal by the agency's other employees.  The FBI, collectively, was madder than hell at Comey for ruining their reputations.
James Comey's decision to revive the investigation of Hillary Clinton's email server and her handling of classified material came after he could no longer resist mounting pressure by mutinous agents in the FBI, including some of his top deputies, according to a source close to the embattled FBI director.

'The atmosphere at the FBI has been toxic ever since Jim announced last July that he wouldn't recommend an indictment against Hillary,' said the source, a close friend who has known Comey for nearly two decades, shares family outings with him, and accompanies him to Catholic mass every week.

'Some people, including department heads, stopped talking to Jim, and even ignored his greetings when they passed him in the hall,' said the source. 'They felt that he betrayed them and brought disgrace on the bureau by letting Hillary off with a slap on the wrist.'

He told his wife that he was depressed by the stack of resignation letters piling up on his desk from disaffected agents. The letters reminded him every day that morale in the FBI had hit rock bottom.
Maybe I watched a bit too much of Efrem Zimbalist Jr. during my junior high and high school days, but his lack of spine was disgraceful an FBI agent, let alone director.  As I said before, everyone may assume that he went full weasel on this because of concern for showing up dead, but I thought guys in his position weren't supposed to be so easily intimidated.
If you're thinking someone on the left has a franchise on horses' heads to stuff into the beds of chickenshits like Comey, isn't the FBI director supposed to be the kind of guy who will stand up to thugs like the mafia or the drug cartels without backing down due to personal fear? Isn't the "Chief Law Enforcement Officer" of the country supposed to be fearless, willing to fight the thugs? At 72, Rudy Guiliani comes across as much more fearless than the 55 year old Comey.  [Nota Bene: I realized shortly after writing this that the term "Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the country" is the attorney general, not the director of the FBI - SiG]
It's an interesting article.  If you can believe the Mail's source, Comey clearly knows he screwed up, and screwed both the agency and people he cares the most about.  He has a guilty conscious - which he should, IMO.  On the more pragmatic side, there are indications he's afraid that he'll be caught in a roll-up of the corrupt, should Trump come in and appoint someone to drain the swamps. 

With Loretta Lynch putting herself back into the middle of this (she had previously recused herself from the case), there are no guarantees anything will come out of it.  Her first act was to tell Comey not to go forward with investigating the new emails.  Lynch and Obama are reportedly steaming mad at Comey.  A short perusal of the Sunday news/talk shows is all you need to take to know that the Hillary camp and DNC have decided the only way they know how to respond to this is by character assassination on Comey.  The vitriol level is on a par with the great floods of all time.  Harry Reid is making up charges like he did about Mitt Romney not paying his taxes.  It's the only response they know: "if you can't attack the message, attack the messenger".

(Gabriella Demczuk/Getty Images)

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Sowing The Seeds of A Crop of Trouble Trees

It's the time of the season for everyone to be cranking out their "best of the old year" and "what's to come in the new year" stories.  I don't want to go full tilt in either direction, but I want to pass on my thoughts about a few things that stand out to me, probably over the next day or so. 

Of course, one of the big stories of 2014 was the sudden war on the police.  Like everyone I regularly read, I'll recognize that there have been too many incidents of what can only be described as police getting away with murder and mayhem that any of the rest of us would be killed for.  There certainly are bad cops.  On balance, though, I come down with the guys who say that most cops are not bad cops and the ones who are doing wrong should be prosecuted like the rest of us would be.

The fact that there are some bad cops is not an excuse to execute random guys.  In my book, there's never an excuse to execute a random person.  If a particular person has violated you, how could executing someone in another city who has never seen you or spoken to you ever be rational?  (Deviant psychology never made sense to me, not that I've wanted to try to wrap my mind around that corkscrew logic.)  Yet we see it happening more often, now, with attacks in North Carolina, El Lay, Tarpon Springs, Florida, and Flagstaff, Arizona.   

We all know the Great Sage Barbie once said, "Math is hard", but the shooters need to know that since the majority of cops are good, the percentages say they're probably shooting good guys and shifting the balance of the forces to bad cops.  They are definitely shifting police to a more offensive standing and being more likely to shoot. 

On the other hand, this to be expected.  For at least one complete generation, if not two, every child who listens to the race hustlers has been taught that the cops are out to destroy them.  Like Comrade de Blasio himself.  Friday, Michael Bane wrote an excellent post "A Harsh Reality", and put it this way:
A couple of days ago before Christmas I wrote a really searing blog post on the complicity of our so-called "leaders" on the LEO assassinations in New York. I decided, upon reflection, not to post it. I thought I needed to make some different points...yes, Barry and Eric and Al and Bill are complicit in the delegitimizing of the police that led directly to the deaths. The concept of delegitimizing the agencies of representative government by the creation of chaos is one of the standard — and most reliable — tools of the leftist/fascist revolutionary.

The idea is to "prove" that the government no longer has control of its own streets or that, in fact, the legitimate authorities are actually agents of oppression (the war on cops); to "prove" that the legal structures of the representative government no longer work (the war on the courts and the grand jury system); to "prove" that the legal protections of the old system are insufficient responses to the "new" social environment (the war on due process waged in many arenas, including on college campuses on the so-called "rape culture"); to "prove" that the leftist/fascist concept of "social justice" cannot be met by the existing representative government and therefore demands a new system.
You should go RTWT - a couple of pages, but good.  Michael, like me and many other gun bloggers, feel that this is going to get worse before it gets better.   As the Investor's Business Daily puts it, the "The Left's War on Cops Has Begun".
There's little doubt where the blame lies: with the race-baiters and communist organizing groups who have taken their cues from the wink-and-nod encouragement from political leaders at the top.

Leaders from President Obama to de Blasio have embraced the radical "narrative" that all police are "Bull Connor"-style predators on black people, along with the de facto message that the police do not have the right to defend themselves in a confrontation.
It doesn't take much reading to find that ANSWER and other communist groups are pushing these demonstrations. 

Step back for a second.  Several observers, like Bayou Renaissance Man for one, have expressed concern about ISIS lately.  For one thing, there are credible reports that ISIS is in the US already, with it being widely reported that the terror organization is/was planning to blow up the Memphis/Arkansas bridge over the Mississippi.  Meanwhile, the US is hampered by a leadership that simply doesn't understand ISIS, according Major General Michael Nagata, special forces commander in the Middle East.  In my mind they don't just "See No Islam" as said in that article, they have no desire to.  They believe that if they just talk with ISIS, the group will abandon their lifelong held views and just love us - possibly the most vain, hubristic thing you'll ever hear.  

ISIS was also called out recently for training small children, 10 and under, including training them to decapitate blond, blue-eyed dolls.  The idea, of course, is to desensitize them to the brutality; to make children think beheading is a Holy thing, and not an act of barbarism.  I'm sure you'll all remember the stories of the Australian jihadi's son holding up a severed had with pride and happiness.  (Pictures here but content warning for the squeamish)

So I ask you: how is this indoctrination of ISIS children different than the indoctrination by Al Sharpton, Saul Alinsky, Frank Marshall Davis, and the others who trained generations of black Americans to believe the police want them dead?   
Michael Ramirez.  It took me a few seconds to realize that was a hand controlling the puppet and not bizarre pants. 


Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Opie? Opie??

Put down the stick, Opie.  (Eric Allie at Townhall). 



Sunday, July 7, 2013

More Tales From the Police State

Though SurvivalBlog is limping along, still hindered by the DDOS attack they've been under since Wednesday, they have routed around the damage and are serving up information again.  From there, I followed a link to the ABA Journal (the American Bar Association) article, "How Did America's Police Become a Military Force on the Streets?", by Radley Balko.  If the name isn't familiar, Radley has written on the over-militarization of the police for several years.  He's a fellow of the CATO Institute and has written for the Huffington Post as well.  This is clearly an area where there should be no party lines, and even the most pro-cop people are starting to see the problems with no-knock raids over a few dollars worth of marijuana; raids that inevitably result in killing the owner's dogs or children.  And this isn't even addressing all the raids on the wrong houses, chronicled on CATO's separate web site.

You should RTWT.  It's a bit long, but worth the time.

The article starts the look at the police militarization from the perspective of the founders and the third amendment in the Bill of Rights.  He asks, "Are cops constitutional?".  He traces the history behind the 3A and slow change from an "officer Friendly" guy walking a beat or otherwise on patrol into the paramilitary SWAT teams now used to collect evidence of tax evasion (leading to a suicide) and other non-violent crimes. 
On Feb. 11, 2010, in Columbia, Mo., the police department’s SWAT team served a drug warrant at the home of Jonathan Whitworth, his wife and their 7-year-old son. Police claimed that eight days earlier they had received a tip from a confidential informant that Whitworth had a large supply of marijuana in his home. They then conducted a trash pull, which turned up marijuana “residue” in the family’s garbage. That was the basis for a violent, nighttime, forced-entry raid on the couple’s home. The cops stormed in screaming, swearing and firing their weapons; and within seconds of breaking down the door they intentionally shot and killed one of the family’s dogs, a pit bull. At least one bullet ricocheted and struck the family’s pet corgi. The wounded dogs whimpered in agony. Upon learning that the police had killed one of his pets, Whitworth burst into tears.
All of this was for nothing.  The end result of the damaged home, shattered lives, and murdered pets was a $300 fine for marijuana pipe at the Whitworth's home. 

But remember, we're all probably federal criminals.  We all probably commit three federal felonies every day without knowing it.

Ralko tells the story of Betty Taylor, a cop who got pulled into the SWAT raids as a follow-up officer, one who tried to take care of kids in the house - if they hadn't been killed.  She talks of how the job ruined her love of police work.
Taylor made her way inside to see them. When she opened the door, the 8-year-old girl assumed a defense posture, putting herself between Taylor and her little brother. She looked at Taylor and said, half fearful, half angry, “What are you going to do to us?”

Taylor was shattered. “Here I come in with all my SWAT gear on, dressed in armor from head to toe, and this little girl looks up at me, and her only thought is to defend her little brother. I thought, ‘How can we be the good guys when we come into the house looking like this, screaming and pointing guns at the people they love? How can we be the good guys when a little girl looks up at me and wants to fight me? And for what? What were we accomplishing with all of this? Absolutely nothing.’ ”
...
Taylor recently ran into the little girl who changed the way she thought about policing. Now in her 20s, the girl told Taylor that she and her brother had nightmares for years after the raid. They slept in the same bed until the boy was 11. “That was a difficult day at work for me,” she says. “But for her, this was the most traumatic, defining moment of this girl’s life. Do you know what we found? We didn’t find any weapons. No big drug operation. We found three joints and a pipe.”

How the war on drugs begins.  Note the escalation of amounts claimed as stolen by heroin addicts in 1972, starting with $2 Billion and eventually being quoted as $18 Billion, when the total of all reported property thefts in the entire nation was $1.2 Billion.  Every single statement was a lie. 



Sunday, June 30, 2013

Tales From the Police State

Apparently underage drinking is such a threat that officers need to hop on hood of a car, point guns at college aged girls and break their car windows.  For buying bottled water. 
A group of state Alcoholic Beverage Control agents clad in plainclothes approached her, suspecting the blue carton of LaCroix sparkling water to be a 12-pack of beer. Police say one of the agents jumped on the hood of her car. She says one drew a gun. Unsure of who they were, Daly tried to flee the darkened parking lot.

"They were showing unidentifiable badges after they approached us, but we became frightened, as they were not in anything close to a uniform," she recalled Thursday in a written account of the April 11 incident.
The state Alcoholic Beverage Control is reviewing the case - anyone want to bet the agents will be chastised for being a bit too "authoritah complex"?   No, I didn't think so. 

The two sides tell completely different stories.  The two girls were stopped by someone showing badges, according to the ABC spokesdroid.  The girls, meanwhile, said, “They were showing unidentifiable badges after they approached us, but we became frightened, as they were not in anything close to a uniform,”.  Fresh from watching a campus program to sensitize them to the dangers of rape,
The woman was on edge after spending the night listening to stories from dozens of sexual assault survivors at an annual "Take Back the Night" vigil on Grounds, said Daly's defense attorney, Francis Lawrence.
Sounds like the "Take Back the Night" vigil did a good job of making the girls think anyone who might talk to them is intending to rape them. 

The whole thing seems to be a horrific misunderstanding.  The agents horribly overreacted - I mean, if two 20 year olds had a case of beer instead of bottled water, so what?  Does it really warrant that sort of reaction?  Talk about a crime by definition rather than something that's truly wrong... The girls, for their part, say they were going to drive to a police station: they wanted the flashing blue lights and the uniforms!  They dialed 911 and stopped when a patrol car showed up.  The whole incident happened because the plain clothes officers freaked out the girls, and when the girls reacted, the officers overreacted.  Culturally, police will never want to allow someone to walk away.  It's surprising things like this don't happen more often.  

No matter what, it still doesn't justify hopping on the car, pulling guns on the girls and trying to break into their SUV.  If they had been running out of a bank, alarms ringing, carrying bags of cash - yeah, sure.  For college age women walking out of a store with something they bought - never.  Never.   
In the eyes of far too many in that uniform, though, there are only two kinds of people in the world: cops and perps.  They're not about to let someone react the way these girls did.  Hopefully, state prosecutors will have some more sense.


Sunday, November 13, 2011

Penn State

(source)
I've been hesitant to say anything about this because I just don't feel comfortable with the story; it seems like there's something else going on.  The behavior of all of the people involved seems so bizarre, I'm waiting for some other shoe to drop.

Nevertheless, there were riots the other night on the news JoePa was fired.  Students - you ought to read a little about what's going on before you protest this.  The way I see it, Joe Paterno ought to be in jail; or at least on house arrest.  Same goes for the school president, Graham Spanier, who didn't report the rapes to police and the coaching assistant, McCreary, who stumbled across the rapist, Sandusky, in the midst of raping a child and did nothing.

I've thought about this a lot over the last several days, and I keep coming back to the conclusion that there's only a couple of appropriate responses to finding a rapist in the act, and they all involve firearms on brain stems - granted you may need to use a shovel or fire extinguisher if you're in a gun-free/victim-terrorization zone.  If it was your son, your daughter, or wife, or mother; if it was you, what would you want the person who finds it to do? 

OK, so McCreary proved himself to be a coward and just reported it to his boss, Paterno, the next day.  Paterno, in turn, proved himself a coward and reported it to his boss.  At some point, these cowards have another trigger point: if they don't see Sandusky taken away in cuffs within a few days to a week at most, they need to report it to the police themselves.  Having not done that, they're accessories to child rape and need to be behind bars.

The inimitable Mike V. over at Sipsey Street did a great piece yesterday talking about when "The Institution" - the collective - becomes more important than mere individuals, this sort of thing happens.  You've probably read it; if not go read.  I can only say that the only possibility more revolting to explain what went on at Penn State is that the institution which Paterno, Spanier and the others are protecting is not Penn State, but a child sex slavery ring. 

I never attended a college with a football team, but anyone who knows any thing at all about college sports knows about Joe Paterno.  Truth be told, I've always respected him.  No longer.  At this point, he's among the most despicable people I know of.

Shotguns on brain stems.  The only appropriate response. 

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

I'm In That Awkward Phase

Mrs. Graybeard and I have a regular joke between us that centers on being caught in between - the most recent version has been "we're at the awkward age between kids and grandkids";  it has also been "I'm at that awkward phase where I understand the beginning books, but not the advanced ones".  Same format works for a variety of jokes.  Especially if they don't have to be all that funny.

In this case it goes I'm not rich enough to be in the 1% that Occupy What Ever is protesting, but I sure as hell don't want to associate myself with the pigs protesting as the 99%.  To begin with, I strongly believe individual rights and freedoms; they are collectivists.  PJ Media has put together an official list of the supporters of Occupy Everything - they have sources for all of these claims.  They include:
Communist Party USA
American Nazi Party
Ayatollah Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran
North Korea
Louis Farrakhan, Nation of Islam
Revolutionary Communist Party
David Duke
Hugo Chavez
Revolutionary Guards of Iran
Black Panthers (original)
Socialist Party USA
CAIR
Communist Party of China
Hezbollah
9/11Truth.org
Anonymous
International Socialist Organization
PressTV (Iranian government outlet)
Marxist Student Union
Freedom Road Socialist Organization
ANSWER
Party for Socialism and Liberation
to name just about half of their list.  You've also seen, I'm sure, that Obama, Biden, Pelosi, and a legion of evil party bigwigs support them, too.   Remember what Mamma said about being known by the company you keep?

I have nothing in common with any of those groups, and my default is that unless I really study the heck out of things, anything they're for I'm likely to be opposed to.  Any friend of the Revolutionary Guards of Iran, or the American Nazi Party, is not at all likely to be a friend of mine. 

Case in point: the media has not widely reported the ongoing problems with rapes and other assaults going on in the camps.  It is widespread, with reports from Cleveland, Baltimore, New York, and others - (even Scotland!).  But it's worse than that.  The organizers are trying to keep the rape victims from going to the police, saying the Occupy Whatever folks will take care of it - by arranging counseling for the rapist!  I assume they give them the dreaded down twinkles of disapproval.  Personally, I think such people need to be introduced to Messrs. Smith and Weston, or John Moses Browning - if it was my wife, daughter or other loved one.  But in their effort to protect the socialist cause, women have been threatened with additional violence or death for reporting their assault! Judging by things women have said on tape, they're at least as afraid of their organizers as they are the rapists.
She said that weeks earlier another woman was raped.  “We don’t tell anyone,” she said. “We handle it internally. I said too much already.”
 BigGovernment.com has an updated rap sheet; just search it for rape or assault. 
If you happen to feel that your life, or the life of your wife/daughter/girlfriend/friend, is worth more than their glorious protest, you might find yourself getting the classic communist treatment - which is to say "killed".  Virtually a third of those polled in New York say they'd approve of violence to achieve their ends.

No, in every way I can think of, I'm much more like these folks. If you haven't seen that place, read for a while.  Good stories from good people.

Monday, August 29, 2011

The Real Problem with the Gibson Raid

Robb Allen over at Sharp as a Marble hits the important points that I've lost track of.

Regardless of any other explanation, any of the politics, money kickbacks or anything else, this was a raid by armed federal agents.  That means if anyone at Gibson had even given the impression of resisting, they would have been slaughtered like an animal, and the officers would face the same justice as the vast majority of other raiders: none. 

As Robb says:
But what bothered me the most was that... They had enough people willing to kill other human beings over pieces of wood that a raid was possible. Not one of them went “You want me to put people’s lives in jeopardy because they purchased wood in a manner that even India doesn’t really enforce?”
And that says it all.  Jeff Cooper once said "Not long ago it was easy to tell who the bad guys were. They carried Kalashnikovs. Now it is much more complicated, but one thing is sure - any man who covers his face and packs a gun is a legitimate target for any decent citizen."

Sunday, June 12, 2011

More Tales From The Over-Regulated State - A Series

H/T to John at Improved Clinch for this link:  Ninja Bureaucrats on the Loose
”The government,” wrote 50-year-old Denise Simon, “is too big to fight.” With those words, in a note to her 17-year-old son, Adam, she explained why she was committing suicide (via carbon monoxide) three days after 10 visibly armed IRS agents in bulletproof vests had stormed her home on Nov. 6, 2007, in search of evidence of tax evasion. Her 10-year-old daughter, Rachel, was there with Simon when the agents stormed in.
John's money quote was a different paragraph, describing how such unlikely agencies as the Railroad Retirement Board have their own armed agents.  I'd rather emphasize this paragraph:
Agents in some of these entities seem prone to ostentatious shows of force or to sending in armed FBI personnel on unnecessary occasions. There was the November 1997 raid on the Massachusetts pollution-control-technology company owned by James M. Knott Sr., in which 21 EPA agents, many armed, swooped in to collect “discharge” readings - and then falsified the results. Similarly, an April 29, 1998, New York Times story reported that “three businessmen told the Senate Finance Committee today of Internal Revenue Service agents who, with guns drawn, broke down doors, terrified workers and forced teenage girls to change clothes in front of male agents in raids at the men’s homes and businesses.”
and I remember writing about this when it happened:
Consider also the case, now infamous, of inventor Krister Evertson. On May 27, 2004, Mr. Evertson was preparing in Wasilla, Alaska, for a private gold-mining expedition to raise more funds for his research into clean-energy fuel cells. Federal agents in two black sport utility vehicles, waving assault rifles, forced his car off the road. Manhandling him as if he were a terrorist, they arrested, interrogated and jailed him. For what? Putting the wrong shipping label - with the correct instructions, mind you, but still the wrong label - on a box of raw sodium that he sold on eBay.
I see two root cause problems.  First, the over growth of the Fed.gov hydra along with an unending supply of militarized police forces and Second, overcriminalization - or, as I've said many times, we need to throw out around 75% of the CFR.

The Heritage Foundation, (disclaimer: I'm a member, and the extent of that is to having paid "dues" for a couple of years) has produced a book and (had?) a blog called One Nation Under Arrest.  The book is subtitled "How Crazy Laws, Rogue Prosecutors, and Activist Judges Threaten Your Liberty".
Heritage fellow Jack Park kicks off the series today. He relates how George Norris, a 67-year-old husband and grandfather, ended up spending almost two years in federal prison. Some of Norris’s paperwork for his home-based orchid business did not meet all of the technical requirements of an international treaty. None of his orchids were illegal to import, possess, or sell, but that did not stop the government from prosecuting and imprisoning him.
A couple of days ago,  Mike over at Sipsey Street said,  "Sooner or later, some Federal DOE thugs are going to get killed doing this, and, I have to tell you, I won't shed a frigging tear for their corpses."  

This was obviously about the DoE SWAT Team invading a California home. Originally reported as being for defaulted student loans, that was later changed to a fraud investigation.  I don't care.

The fracking Department of Education shouldn't have a SWAT Team. They shouldn't be running any sort of warrants, let alone no-knock warrants. I don't care if they were there for some sort of fraud and not because she was behind in her loans. This is a white collar crime with a person that could have been dealt with in a hundred other ways.  The tiniest bit of intelligence effort would have revealed she doesn't even live there.   Instead, they break in like they're trying to take down Pablo Escobar's cocaine cartel.  This.  Must.  Stop. 

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Strange and Bizarre Stories From the Police State

"Offered for your consideration" is a handful of stories that are completely unrelated, at first blush. 

First: why is there a secret morgue near Joplin, MO?  Police railroaded a CNN crew away from the place in this video:



Everyone knows there were tornadoes in Joplin and everyone knows there were many victims.  Anyone who thinks about it, and puts in the context of other stories we've heard, knows that there's probably some amount of collecting body parts and trying to match them into sets of remains that can be given an identity.  I'm sure some of the bodies are in a condition that family members wouldn't want pictures of.  But I don't think people want to watch that; I think most people are just curious about the magnitude of the tragedy.  I can understand you don't want cameras in there in respect to the survivors, but to essentially make the entire thing secret?  Why not just have a spokesman outside or in a nearby place to talk with the news media?  This is the sort of total blackout secrecy tactics the CIA and NRO use: just make everything secret.
  

The next story is about the terrible crime of pruning your trees on your own commercial property
The church was fined $100 per branch cut for excessive pruning, bringing the violation to $4,000.
$100 per branch?  The "City of Trees" (Charlotte, NC, by the way) will get rid of the fine if they destroy the trees and replace them.  No, really. 
The fine will be dropped if the church replaces each of the improperly pruned trees, said Tom Johnson, senior urban forester for city of Charlotte Land Development Division.
I'm speechless.  So if you let the trees grow back the pruned branches, (which is why you prune a tree, after all) that's a $4000 fine, but if you kill the tree and buy a replacement, that's better?  Did a nursery write this law? 

As Borepatch says, North Carolina used to be a nice place, now it's doing its best to become the Massachusetts of Dixie.

Finally, the story about the Department of Fatherland Security's "Future Crime"-like FAST system is getting wider circulation and made "The Blaze" today.  This is the system that they plan to use at bowl games and other big sporting events that they think are terrorist targets.  Or places to round up Threepers, Bitter Clingers and other anti-regime groups. 

The system strikes me as a lie detector (polygraph) in different clothes.  The way they say it works is to examine your physiological responses and compare it to expected values, which is exactly what a polygraph does.  In other words, like all polygraphs, it works by intimidating you into thinking it works.   

It always struck me as funny that on one hand, the government gave polygraph tests to all sorts of employees, while on the other hand, the three letter agencies were teaching classes in how not to get caught by a polygraph.  "Lie detector" tests are inadmissible in courts because the technology has basically been discredited (summary here - but just Google or Bing "beat polygraph") for more. 

And what do all of these stories have in common?  The Government knows better than you, is there to protect you from yourself, and will send police to enforce that. 

Sunday, May 29, 2011

TSA To Oversee High School Prom??

I was just visiting the TSA careers web page, and I didn't see a single item that said you would provide security at high school proms - or, to put a more accurate description on it - not a single thing that said you would pat down high school girls at their prom.  That seems to be the job this month, though.  This is confusing, but apparently Candice Herrera and her sister went to the Capital High School prom and were treated roughly by the security officer at that prom
Candice Herrera said, "She grabbed my breast and grabbed the inner part of my bra and shook it and then picked up the front of my dress to like mid thigh." Herrera said. "She was patting down my bare legs which kind of didn't make sense."
So to ensure rough treatment of high school girls doesn't happen, the Santa Fe school board has hired the TSA to pat down the girls.  
On Friday, the court ordered Santa Fe Public Schools and the security company ASI to provide at least one TSA certified person at the Santa Fe High School prom and the Capital High School graduation.
Oh - the highly professional TSA is being brought in to provide a higher level of ... professionalismWhat could possibly go wrong?  Every single word there is a separate link, and I don't even scratch the surface. 

Saturday, May 28, 2011

I Come To You With A Heavy Heart

I believe the recent abandonment of the fourth amendment is causing a cascade failure of the Bill of Rights.  Maybe that's not precisely right, maybe it has nothing to do with the recent court rulings because the BOR has been falling for quite a while now.  But there's a growing feeling it has started. 

John Venlet at Improved Clinch joins several who believe the next civil war has started, and it has come - not surprisingly - on jack boots.
The war of the United States government against the people is an ongoing and expanding action, the current preferred term being a kinetic military action, and this war is being waged on multiple fronts, with casualties on all fronts, though the highest body counts are currently on the domestic, or home front.
As Alan at Snarky Bytes said last week, you know we have problems when the police work under looser rules of engagement than our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.  John continues:
Individual Americans are mostly silent in response to the war(s) being waged on them by the government, one could say complicitly silent, even as the war(s) death toll rises.  Why is this?  If Islamic terrorists were killing Americans in their homes, a hue and cry would resound throughout the land, marches would be held, politicians would righteously harrumph, and mainstream media sources would pour rivers of indignant words.  These things are not happening in America in response to the war of the United States government against the people because it is the police who are killing the people under the banner of law and order.  It is because America is become a police state. (emphasis added)
Professionalism fills American Mercenary as he goes through a couple of examples of how one can use open source intelligence to understand their Area of Operation.  Check out the Targeting Packet and the important field of Human Network Analysis

There are many open sources of information available today.  Many counties, including the Pima County, have the tax collector's records online.  It's a simple matter to look these up.   

One of John's comments links to this wonderful quote by Jeff Cooper:
“Not long ago it was easy to tell who the bad guys were. They carried Kalashnikovs. Now it is much more complicated, but one thing is sure - any man who covers his face and packs a gun is a legitimate target for any decent citizen.” - Jeff Cooper, June 1993

That cat's lucky they have such good trigger control, I tell you what! At least the cat didn't get shot at 71 times. 

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Thoughts I Didn't Get To This Week

I talked about Obama's stupid policy towards Israel the other day.  I see it as the US abandoning Israel.  Caroline Glick sees it as Obama's Abandonment of America and raises some interesting points.  Here's one we absolutely agree on:
AS FOR ISRAEL, in a way, Obama did Israel a favor by giving this speech. By abandoning even a semblance of friendliness, he has told us that we have nothing whatsoever to gain by trying to make him like us.
It's a final cutoff, telling Israel to go pound sand.

Something to bear in mind is that if this is truly God at work, it doesn't matter what we do - if the US is for or against Israel.  It's His call.  It may be that Israel needs to be sifted (Luke 22:31).  It may be that the US needs to be sifted.  The Bible is nothing if not a collection of stories of the Jews (as models of all of us) falling away, and having to be punished, then put back on the right track.

In the wake of the death of the 4th amendment (Indiana and then the Supremes themselves) something has been bothering me, and my wife put it into perspective.  There is now no way to pass the Jews in the Attic Test

I haven't commented on the murder of Jose Guerena, but Sheriff Douchebag, um, Dipshit,... um Dupnik in Arizona has really raised a lot of hackles.  I'd bet there's at least ten thousand people in this country who would take him out, given half a chance.   Yes, this is the same Sheriff Dipshit who blamed the shooting of Congress Critter Giffords on the "vitriolic rhetoric" of the right.  I'm sure his crack swat team shooting an innocent Marine veteran 70-frickin' times is someone elses' fault, too.  Gonna blame this one on Rush, too, Dipshit?  I'm with RTC on this one.

This case is bullcrap from top to bottom.  Kill a guy who never took his gun off safety with 71 shots, then deliberately keep the paramedics from treating him until he dies because everyone know "dead men tell no tales"?  And then try to frame him?  Screw impeachment or recall.  This sheriff needs to be in jail.  This is the worst of what America is turning into. 

Thursday, January 20, 2011

More on TJIC

When the story broke, my first thought was something I saw during the summer of '09, when the nation erupted with protests over the socialization of medicine.  Congress-critters on all sides were shocked to find that the cattle didn't like what the slaughterhouse had planned for them and massive numbers of moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas, and working people showed up to protest.  This video got around back then (and h/t to user "DissentFromDayOne" on YouTube).



Both this video and TJC's problems reek of what David Codrea calls "The Only Ones".  The cops know better than you.  They can arbitrarily shut you down and shut you up.  I've got first amendment rights.  "If you put up that sign, I'll arrest you."  This is America.  "It ain't no more, ok?"

While TJC hasn't personally contacted me, Arctic Patriot listed contact numbers for the Arlington PD, and TC asked him to take them down.  In light of that, I'll respect that and not list any information, but as my commenter Cold Fusion said last night,
"If we ever needed proof that the right wing is the reasonable wing.. just imagine how many lefties would be out in the streets with signs if the sides were flipped. " 
You know ... if only there were an organization devoted to defending Civil Liberties for American citizens.  You know, some sort of Union of lawyers that specialized in defending rights.  Too bad we don't have any organization like that which really cares about working, productive citizens. 

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

The First Amendment is Dead - And It's Taking the Second

It's almost a cliche' that freedom of speech is only important when the speech is offensive.  Don't know about you, but leftist loonies have been telling me that every time they dump a crucifix in urine or drop poop on a portrait of the Virgin Mary - roughly once a week - for 40 years now.  The other day, there was a case here in Florida about the free speech rights of a guy publishing an instruction manual for pedophiles.  All the usual left wing-nuts were defending him.   

Be aware that you don't have freedom of speech if you're not a statist.

One of my regular reads is "Dispatches from TJICistan" - but don't bother clicking, it has been taken down.  It seems the town of Arlington, Mass., has shut down his blog, confiscated his weapons, and confiscated his carry permit after they learned of a blog posting of his entitled "1 down, 534 to go" after the Tucson shooting.  They probably seized his computers, although the article doesn't say so.  It concludes:

Corcoran, who has no criminal history, has not been arrested and does not face any charges. Arlington police saying they are working with the Capitol Police in their investigation, and members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation have been alerted.
TJC is Travis Corcoran, a guy who has written for Fine Woodworking Magazine, and blogs on a variety of topics including woodworking, mastering the lathe, fine cooking, interesting oddities of the English language, his study of classical guitar, and other things that interest him.  Since I also happen to be interested in all of those things, he's a natural to go read.  He also writes from the same "small 'L' libertarian" perspective that most of my regular reading list does, and that I do. 

When I first read the posting that caused all this, I was a bit taken aback, but in the days that followed he stated clearly where he was coming from, that he does not advocate shooting politicians, he does not think that a civil war or revolution is necessary, but that there are times when this is reasonable.  The founding fathers, after all, were in armed rebellion against the legal government they were living under, right?  They were British citizens shooting British citizens.  Unless you are of the belief that no system of government is ever so oppressive or so tyrannical as to need to be overthrown, you must agree that this is not an unreasonable opinion.  He also said that he had intended that more as a joke, and who among us has never said something stupid that "went over like a lead balloon". 

Borepatch, as usual, brings teh smart to the story (and generated the graphic for free distribution).  
Let's ignore for the moment how many people were investigated for making similar comments about George W. Bush.  Let's look at the "logic" being exercised by the Arlington Po-Po, shall we?

They claim that Corcoran is so dangerous that, while he has done nothing more than put up a blog post, he must be restrained from possessing firearms.  However, it appears that it's not worth it for the police to follow him, or stake out his place, or arrest him.

Huh?

Look, guys, if you think that his speech rises to the level of an actual threat of specific harm to specific persons, he should be in jail.  If you're not sure, then do the leg work to establish whether it is or not.
Borepatch's piece is worth your time to read.  I don't know how worthwhile it would be for people to write the Arlington police or his representatives.  Given today's climate, it would probably just get the same treatment for you.

As Arctic Patriot says, "Resist".

Monday, September 6, 2010

Labor Day 2010

Like most workers who get paid holidays, I'm enjoying a day off.  I realize this doesn't apply to those who are working in hospitals, police cruisers, or other jobs that simply must be manned 24/7/365, and I thank you.  Long ago and far away, I worked as an ER nurse's aide; I understand.  It rained all afternoon, but the pork butts were smoked yesterday, so it was a lazy day here at the castle. 

Back on topic, Denninger (whom I probably link to more than anyone) has posted a must read essay, called "Why Do You Labor?"

Denninger does a good job of addressing the corruption in the highest levels of the government/banking cabal, and it got me thinking.  Is the US a police state?  What's your definition of a police state?  Wikipedia might be only occasionally useful, but they are probably worthwhile for simple definitions. 
The term police state describes a state in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic and political life of the population. A police state typically exhibits elements of totalitarianism and social control, and there is usually little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the executive.

The inhabitants of a police state experience restrictions on their mobility, and on their freedom to express or communicate political or other views, which are subject to police monitoring or enforcement. Political control may be exerted by means of a secret police force which operates outside the boundaries normally imposed by a constitutional state.[1]
Is there totalitarianism?  How about when large percentages of voters oppose government healthcare or car company bailouts, and they do it anyway - then insist you be "reeducated" about how wonderful it is?  How about when the government breaks all the rules of transactions for corporate bonds and  gets away with it? 

Is there social control?  How about when the Department of Justice, ordered by the Attorney General of the United States, decides to not prosecute blatantly criminal actions based solely on whether the offenders are a preferred minority?  (are we not all a minority, depending on how far down in our classifications we want to go?)

Is your mobility restricted?  Ever been stopped at random by police, or because you met some profile?  Around here, a local sheriff used to fund his department by stopping cars and checking for cash.  If you have cash, you must be a drug dealer, therefore it's their money to seize.  The only arguments appeared to be whether they were profiling minorities.  The argument that we should have a right to carry cash if we so want seems to have never been considered.    

Is your freedom to express political or other views restricted?  How about if the Speaker of the House, the third person in the line of succession should the President and Vice President be killed or incapacitated, thinks you should be investigated if you suggest a mosque should not be built at ground zero - in other words, use your first amendment rights?   
"I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded. How is this being ginned up..."
How about when the FCC's "Diversity Czar" says
"...my focus here is not freedom of speech or the press. This freedom is all too often an exaggeration. At the very least, blind references to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the critical examination of other communications policies.
"[T]he purpose of free speech is warped to protect global corporations and block rules that would promote democratic governance."

Are you subject to police monitoring?  Police UAVs are hot-selling surveillance item. When questioned about FAA laws that forbid overflying residential areas at less than 500 feet, a local officer responded they were exempt because they were LEOs.  Have you been a victim of a botched SWAT raid?  Perhaps a wrong address, or the result of an informant saying anything to get some credits, and had your dog shot?  Perhaps the BATF raided you and, unable to find anything wrong, stomped on your kitten and killed it? (or here )   
In a case which is widely known among the gun community, but which has been ignored by the national press, except for the Washington Times, the home of gun show promoters Harry and Theresa Lamplugh was raided by BATF in 1994. At least fifteen BATF agents, armed with machine guns, burst into the Lamplugh's home one morning. Mr. Lamplugh asked the men, most of whom were not wearing uniforms, if they had a warrant. "Shut the f___ up mother f___er; do you want more trouble than you already have?" they responded, sticking a machine gun in his face.

Over the next six and half hours, BATF agents demolished the home, refused to let the Lamplughs get dressed, held a pizza party, killed three house cats (including a Manx kitten which was stomped to death), scattered Mr. Lamplugh's cancer pills all over the floor, and carted off over eighteen thousand dollars worth of the Lamplughs' property, plus their medical records. Nearly a year later, the government has neither filed any criminal charges, nor returned any property, even the medical records. (119)

Denninger's point is that the only way to shut down the corrupt, emerging police state is to starve the beast.  He is, in effect, calling for a national strike.  He says,
Why do you willingly get up and make effort to feed your family and better yourself when literally trillions of your money are lavished on these enterprises by a band of 545 crooks in Washington DC who have all, each and every one of them, personally enabled, permitted and endorsed these scams?

I speak specifically of:
435 Representatives in Congress
100 Senators
1 President
9 Supreme Court Justices
My definition of a police state has always been a bit nebulous.  Essentially everything is illegal, and whether you live or die is up to the police officer you are in contact with. After thinking about these examples, I have to conclude, if we aren't a police state, "I can see it from my porch". 

Friday, June 25, 2010

But She Was A Particularly Aggressive Octagenarian Invalid

Yes, she was an 86 invalid, bed-ridden, on oxygen.  Surrounded and outnumbered 10:1 by young strapping police officers (no - I don't exactly know how big and tall these guys were, but compared to her, I'm sure they were big, healthy guys). 

But she looked threatening, and after stepping on her oxygen line and cutting it off, they shot her - not once, but twice - with a taser. Actual filed lawsuit here.

All my life, I've tended to side with the police.  Tended to give them the benefit of the doubt.  I still do, it's just getting harder.  There's no reason for there to be 10 police on what should be a paramedic call, but maybe that's the dispatcher's fault.  But if you have 10 grown men around one 86 year old invalid, it's hard to imagine what she could do that would be so much of an "aggressive posture" to warrant being tasered twice.  Well, maybe if she had a one of these in the bed, but I think that would have made the news.