"Hillary Clinton and Gabby Giffords Politicized the Hell Out of Gun Violence in Iowa."

I saw part of this on C-Span, but it made me want to puke so I turned it to a re-run of The Great Escape.

From Pacifist Sheep Farmer to One of Britain’s Greatest Secret Agents

Luck, a penchant for survival and sheer guts …. that was Lt. Col. Francis Cammaerts. He died in 2006 at age 90, and is still remembered as one of the most effective British operatives of World War II. “From the earliest days of his work it was apparent that he was one of the most outstanding organizers in the field,” his citation for the Distinguished Service Order stated. “This was borne out on D-Day when his organization numbered 20,000 men of which at least 15,000 were fully armed” — a boon to the regular Allied forces as the French resistance destroyed rail lines, sabotaged German communications and ambushed German troops. Only a handful of men and women who worked with Cammaerts are alive today. But historians and family friends of Cammaerts remember him as a man who expressed fierce loyalty toward the French people, and a fervent determination to wipe out the Nazis because of the personal loss the war brought to his family.

More on the Orcs in Hobbitton Kulturschock.

"Why the migration fiasco spells doom for Project Europe: The influx of migrants has exposed the anti-democratic bias and the administrative uselessness of the EU.

War in Syria: Russia’s 'rustbucket' military delivers a hi-tech shock to West and Israel

Their army’s equipment and strategy was “outmoded”; their air force’s bombs and missiles were “more dumb than smart”; their navy was “more rust than ready”. For decades, this was Western military leaders’ view, steeped in condescension, of their Russian counterparts. What they have seen in Syria and Ukraine has come as a shock. Russian military jets have, at times, been carrying out more sorties in a day in Syria than the US-led coalition has done in a month. The Russian navy has launched ballistic missiles from the Caspian Sea 900 miles way, and kept supply lines going to Syria. The air defences installed by the Russians in Syria and eastern Ukraine would make it extremely hazardous for the West to carry out strikes against the Assad regime or Ukrainian separatists. Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, the commander of the US army in Europe, has described Russian advances in electronic warfare in Syria and Ukraine – a field in which they were typically supposed to be backward – as “eye watering”.

You didn't think this was just about firearms, did you?

Facebook Implements Chinese-Style Censorship/Snitch Policies.

Heard this in church this morning. Sounds like a plan.

 

Psalm 103 of David.

¹ Praise the Lord, my soul;
    all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
² Praise the Lord, my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits—
³ who forgives all your sins
    and heals all your diseases,
⁴ who redeems your life from the pit
    and crowns you with love and compassion,
⁵ who satisfies your desires with good things
    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

⁶ The Lord works righteousness
    and justice for all the oppressed.

⁷ He made known his ways to Moses,
    his deeds to the people of Israel:
⁸ The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
    slow to anger, abounding in love.
⁹ He will not always accuse,
    nor will he harbor his anger forever;
¹⁰ he does not treat us as our sins deserve
    or repay us according to our iniquities.
¹¹ For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
    so great is his love for those who fear him;
¹² as far as the east is from the west,
    so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

¹³ As a father has compassion on his children,
    so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
¹⁴ for he knows how we are formed,
    he remembers that we are dust.
¹⁵ The life of mortals is like grass,
    they flourish like a flower of the field;
¹⁶ the wind blows over it and it is gone,
    and its place remembers it no more.
¹⁷ But from everlasting to everlasting
    the Lord’s love is with those who fear him,
    and his righteousness with their children’s children—
¹⁸ with those who keep his covenant
    and remember to obey his precepts.

¹⁹ The Lord has established his throne in heaven,
    and his kingdom rules over all.

²⁰ Praise the Lord, you his angels,
    you mighty ones who do his bidding,
    who obey his word.
²¹ Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts,
    you his servants who do his will.
²² Praise the Lord, all his works
    everywhere in his dominion.

Praise the Lord, my soul.

New International Version (NIV)

No apologies necessary.

Received this email today:

Mike Vanderboegh,
You are owed an apology, from the heart, and I am determined you should see it with your own eyes.
You and your blog, Sipsey Street, were my first introduction to the 3%.  While no stranger to the concepts I was ignorant  of the efforts of a tireless minority.  Being exposed thusly has led me to other writers and a much fuller knowledge of the issues.
I admit to disagreeing with you on almost every point.  Events, now history, has shown you to be correct from the beginning about a great many things, big and small.  Even some of the fallout surrounding Christian (Kerodin) affected me directly.
You sir, are owed an apology and I am sorry, you saw far clearer the issues and the cures this country faces.
I was wrong and I'm sorry.
I have nothing of substance to offer, I'd be homeless if it weren't for living on another man's couch, 1000 miles of travel is beyond what I can stand.  May the folks who can show up set you and your lady's world in order.
Godspeed to you, I suspect we'll see each other soon enough-humbly,
A.

I replied:

 No apologies necessary. You're not the first man to be wrong about something.  Heck, neither am I.  We live and learn.  God bless you, sir.

Mike

The remarkable valediction of one of the men in my own personal pantheon of heroes.

A valediction (derivation from Latin vale dicere, "to say farewell"), or complimentary close in American English, is an expression used to say farewell, especially a word or phrase used to end a letter or message, or the act of saying parting words whether brief or extensive. -- Wikipedia.

Charles Christopher Sheats, Born 10 April 1839, Walker County, Alabama. Died 27 May 1904, Morgan County, Alabama.

Charles Christopher Sheats, better known as Chris Sheats up in the hollows and hills of Winston County, was an absolutely brave, incorruptible, modest and principled man who voted against secession at the Alabama convention in 1861 and was beaten and jailed for his resistance so the planters could later claim that the vote was unanimous. The Confederate authorities wanted to hang him throughout the war on a variety of treason charges, only to be deterred by the Federal promise to hang a number of Copperhead leaders in retaliation if they did.

You can find the marker of his grave today in McKendree United Methodist Church Cemetery off of Alabama 157, near Battleground. I have visited that plot and always marvel at the simplicity of the valediction on the tombstone:

"I love my country, my God and my kind. I have served them all. I want no praise of song or prose."

Despised by many of his fellow Alabamians while he was alive, constantly threatened with death by the planter class before, during and after the Civil War, he remains today all but unknown to history but still beloved by the descendants of the yeoman farmer mountain Unionists. The truth of his simple valediction rings throughout the years to those of us who have studied his life struggle. One could do far worse for a valediction. Sometime next month, I think I'll go back and visit with Chris one more time.

As William Faulkner once wrote: “The past is never dead. It's not even past.”

The Democrat National Committee Newsletter, sometimes known as the Washington Post (and occasionally as Pravda-on-the-Potomac) sounds collision alarms on the S.S. Hillary Clinton.

"Hillary Clinton’s email defense just hit a major bump in the road."

See also: "Hillary’s lame excuses for her e-mail misconduct are crumbling."

And: DOJ, FBI “SUPER PISSED OFF” at Obama White House Over Clinton Investigation

AND this Drudge headline: "OBAMA EMAILED HILLARY 18 TIMES! (CLAIMED HE LEARNED FROM MEDIA.)""The department announced that 18 emails exchanged between Mrs. Clinton and President Obama would also be withheld, citing the longstanding practice of preserving presidential communications for future release."

The permanent government (i.e. federal bureaucracy) is up in arms about the threat to their "Mandate of Heaven" represented by the imminent foundering of the SS Hillary Clinton. The fact that Hillary has the keys to the kingdom in terms of message traffic and insider knowledge of the White House-originated conspiracy against the Constitution known as Fast and Furious makes the timing on how the Obamanoids deal with this very dicey. To accomplish the removal of the Clintons from the election in time to substitute a Biden/Elizabeth Warren switcheroo, they have to have Hillary's agreement to accept a preemptive pardon. If Hillary decides to go all Samson on them and pull down the temple with her, they're screwed. If Hillary waits too long to work the deal offered, she's screwed. The FBI underlings are said to be in open revolt already with whistleblowing sounding in the distance and yet THEY, as an institution, are interested in keeping their participation in F&F via the actual smuggling of arms by their creatures the Miramontes brothers a secret. There's enough blackmail material here to make the eyes of the most corrupt and Byzantine operative of the Tsarist secret police in Hell permanently crossed.

Can't blame them one bit, but boy, will that demented dwarf Kim Jong Un be pissed.

Japan orders military to prepare to destroy N. Korea missile

Kudlow: "The Fed Is Freaked Out About the Financial Markets."

I'd say the Fed is completely freaked out by financial markets that are turning against it. The central bank says its policies are "data driven." But the recent FOMC statement suggests the Fed is looking at everything. It has a hundred indicators -- domestic, international, jobs and inflation. In truth, it doesn't know what its next move is going to be, because it can't read the economy. Fed policy is opaque, confusing and rudderless.

Official: Some Clinton emails 'too damaging' to release

The intelligence community has deemed some of Hillary Clinton’s emails “too damaging" to national security to release under any circumstances, according to a U.S. government official close to the ongoing review. A second source, who was not authorized to speak on the record, backed up the finding. The determination was first reported by Fox News, hours before the State Department formally announced Friday that seven email chains, found in 22 documents, will be withheld “in full” because they, in fact, contain “Top Secret” information. The State Department, when first contacted by Fox News about withholding such emails Friday morning, did not dispute the reporting – but did not comment in detail. After a version of this report was first published, the Obama administration confirmed to the Associated Press that the seven email chains would be withheld. The department has since confirmed those details publicly.

Bloomberg Cities Make Top 50 List for World’s ‘Most Violent’

As for the U.S. cities that made the list, they also share undeniable commonalities. For instance, they’re all dominated by Democrats. They all champion “progressive” policies. And every single one of them has been an enthusiastic member of Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns (Note that Detroit no longer appears on the MAIG site, but former Mayor Dave Bing was a “leader” in Bloomberg’s Michigan coalition.)

Another big surprise. Orcs refuse to abide by hobbit law. What else did the Euroweenies expect?

"Sexism and Islam: 'Where I'm From, This is Handled By Men'"

See also: Stemming the Flow: Berlin Hunts for Back-Up Plan in Refugee Crisis

Hardly surprising. When the Devil signs your paycheck you must dance to his tune.

"Bloomberg editor quits: We can't cover Michael Bloomberg aggressively."

"How to Survive Solitary Confinement."

Yet Perez pauses when he is asked how it felt to be confined for so long. “That’s an interesting question,” he says. “Because in a sense, you are confined, and in other senses, you’re free.” Perez says he left solitary confinement a better man than he entered it.

"Falwell's Less-Than-Christian Endorsement."

It seems Trump's only values are wealth and power. The Presbyterian church Trump claims to attend says that he is not an active member. Trump publicly treats other human beings with a complete lack of Christian love, constantly calling them "losers," "morons," and other demeaning names simply because they disagree with him, trail in the polls, or have fewer Twitter followers. In a pathetic attempt to pander to Falwell's own Liberty University crowd, Trump's "Two Corinthians" blunder demonstrated his lack of Biblical knowledge. His behavior continually shows that he has no active participation in Christianity, whether through scripture, a church, or his treatment of other people in daily life.

"Complete, Unedited Video of Joint FBI and OSP Operation 01/26/2016 ."

Link.

Update on work weekend and other matters.

My apologies for waiting so late to brief you on the upcoming work weekend/barbeque (5-7 February) at the Vanderboegh place, but I have been increasingly struggling against weakness and pain. Here is where we are at the moment:

Thanks to generous donations that came in subsequent to David Codrea's appeal, I have arranged for local folks to fix the garage doors (done), remove and replace the back upper deck and fix the back wall (in process) and to repair the back eaves and replace the gutter in the back (next in line).

This still leaves much to do in both outside jungle removal and inside organization and packing (books and papers that I am donating to the Vanderboegh collection at the Birmingham Public Library Archives), not to mention help carrying out the logistics of feeding those folks who show up during those three days.

The weather report for that weekend is as follows:

10 day forecast for Pinson.

Bob Wright is bringing in a small crew to help with outside yard work and various small repairs (electrical and plumbing) inside jobs. Thus, I will not have room in the house to shelter anyone else, and any volunteers who come that are not local will need to make their own arrangements for shelter. I hate it, but that is the way it is. We will of course feed you while you're here. A larger group from my church will be assisting in the jungle removal and I'll have local friends who will run the pickup/trailer combinations to the dump as the cut brush is generated. Volunteers who still want to come should bring those tools necessary to remove the brush: chain saws, lobbers, etc. Of course anyone else who wants to bring an open-top trailer to facilitate brush removal is appreciated.

As I said, I'm getting weaker by the day and I have a doctor's appointment on 1 February to see if he has any strategies to counter that. But beyond shuffling around and telling folks what they should be doing, don't expect any help from me. I will have some Three Percenter gear to give to any volunteers who want it, but that and some good Alabama barbeque is all I can offer in return.

After the weekend, I will immediately put all my efforts into finishing Absolved, then polishing a couple of non-fiction manuscripts. If God gives me the time, I am still on track to travel north, first to the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot one last time and then on up to NY and CT to stick my thumb in the eye of the beast in armed civil disobedience actions there in early to mid April. We still need more freedom-fighter grade magazines for both actions. (Or I might reverse the itinerary, starting in NY and working my way back south.) Sometime in there I expect to go to Ohio and see my Mother and my oldest grandson and Matt will be coming in from Germany to spend a couple of weeks in February or March.

That's as much as I can tell you at the moment, for as they say, man proposes but God disposes. This is of course, barring a miracle (and please keep me on your prayer lists). For those of you who still intend to journey south all that way, I can only say I am grateful for such friends and look forward to seeing you all.

SPLC collectivist hack uses my words to justify repression.

As the Southern Poverty Law Center documented in a report published after the standoff, federal inaction allowed the ideas that inspired Cliven Bundy to spread across the West. In the days after the Bundy family protest, in fact, longtime militia leader Mike Vanderboegh said: “Courage is contagious.” Sadly, that courage did turn into a contagion as increasing numbers of antigovernment extremists centered their anger on the federal government’s administration of public lands.

This month's top prize for horse excrement and magical thinking.

"THINKING BIG: The case for disarming America’s police force."

(LINK NOW FIXED.)

Not counting the snitches and agents provocateurs, of course.

Where was the FBI during the armed standoff in Oregon? Out of sight, but listening and watching

Yes, The Australian Model On Gun Control Means Bans and Confiscation

Nobody wants to take your guns. That’s what most mainstream pro-gun control Democrats say ad nauseam at various rallies. There’s also the “I support the Second Amendment, but…” that advocates of gun control say prior to offering some pie-in-the-sky policy proposals that usually venture into bans on so-called assault rifles, limiting magazine sizes, or an all-out ban on semi-automatic firearms. That’s essentially a gun ban.

From Matt Bracken -- "Maoris, Moors and Migrants: A history lesson for civilized humans facing an Ork invasion."

By the time the native people on Chatham Island (or on The Island of Plenty, or in Europe today) realize what mortal peril they are in, they have let in so many vicious Orks that the invaders automatically present a grave threat to the native population at large. I would point to the widespread sex attacks in Cologne and across Europe on New Year’s Eve, as just one recent example of the threat posed by the Orks.

"Malheur: The 3,025 FPS Arrest Warrant."

News of the recent events in Oregon deeply saddened me. According to Victoria Sharp (who was in the car that was ambushed) Lavoy Finicum was shot when he had his hands in the air. We really won’t know who to believe until video of the event is released. (There were 30+ vehicles there, so the chances are very good that a dashcam recorded what happened.) The Federal agents have apparently now upped the ante, turning what had been a peaceful dialogue into a shooting affray. It saddens me to hear that there was loss of life in the ambush-arrest of several of the Malheur protestors. I must ask: Why did the FBI roadblock them out in the middle of nowhere, where there would no independent witnesses? (Why not just arrest them in the parking lot, just before the well-publicized public meeting?) Since when is an arrest warrant served at 3,025 feet per second?

"Authorities urge remaining Oregon occupiers to quit after killing."

The arrests and shooting have angered anti-government protesters across the country, said Mike Vanderboegh, a gun-rights activist active in self-proclaimed militia circles. "It's all I can do to keep people from going and shooting feds right now," he told Reuters. Vanderboegh said the FBI had acted too quickly to end a situation that was already headed toward peaceful resolution.

See also: Robert 'LaVoy' Finicum shot and killed while charging police, driver says

And also-- "Oregon Arrests: Feds Intercepted Occupation Leaders as Part of Plan says Official."

“Authorities seeking to end a nearly month-long protest at an Oregon wildlife refuge realized there was only one way to bring the drama to a close: Arrest the leadership.”

Corrections to previous post.

The FBI did not advance to take the Refuge last night coincident with the roadblock and it was Ryan Bundy who was wounded not Ryan Payne (more's the pity). Will have more later.

The Feds accommodate Ammon Bundy and give him his John-Brown-at-Harper's-Ferry moment, and we get to make a choice.

Ammon Bundy Taken Into FBI Custody

Also see: Shots fired, 1 killed in arrest of Oregon militants and An occupier surrenders in Arizona

I am awaiting better intel from the ground out in Burns before commenting further, but a few facts strike me right now:

1. The Feds picked this fight. They apparently suckered Ammon and Co. by having locals invite them to a meeting, intending all along to ambush them at a deliberate road block and to simultaneously take down the occupation site.

2. This was totally unnecessary since the resolve of the occupiers was weakening and they were in negotiations to achieve a peaceable exit. What the hurry was is mystifying to me since the Feds negotiated with the Montana Freemen for 81 days before coming to a peaceful resolution.

3. Our attitude was that as much as we disagreed with Ammon Bundy's choice of targets, tactics, timing and "friends" like the sociopath (and probable Fed provocateur) Ryan Payne, the Feds had a higher duty not to violate the occupiers' due process rights.

4. A sniper's bullet at a pre-planned roadblock is NOT due process.

5. Such an action would not have been done without the sanction of the political leadership in the White House. Therefore we can conclude that this is, once again, the Feds making a show of the Waco logic embodied in Catch 22: "We can do anything you can't stop us from doing. We are the Imperial Feds and you WILL obey us."

6. We need more information and confirmation of what I have written, but it is apparent that the Feds are giving us all a choice.

The art (and calculation) of the deal. "Cruz-Hating Republicans Need a Reality Check."

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. This sound aphorism may have a less pithy political corollary: Never attribute to strategy what can be explained by emotion. Only this truth can help us understand why Republican officials have started saying they prefer Donald Trump to Senator Ted Cruz as their presidential nominee. Congressional Republicans would supposedly come out ahead with Trump because he would be a stronger nominee and a more cooperative president.

Horrific? This well-intentioned guy leaves out so much in terms of COMMUNITY preparedness and organization that his efforts to "educate" will merely lead to his own victimization at the hands of the grasshoppers.

"Hard Core Realities: How Horrific Will It Be For People That Fail to Prep."

And if "the next big war" is a CIVIL war?

Preparing for the Next Big War

"Other solutions." Glenn Reynolds stumbles toward a moment of revelation.

Glenn Reynolds: "Forecast of distrust with a chance of revolution."

All of this comes against a background of debacles like the botched ObamaCare rollout, the mistranslated “reset” button with Russia, a Secret Service that can’t seem to hang on to its guns, to keep its agents sober or to keep intruders out of the White House, an EPA that didn’t report the water problems in Flint, Mich., and a seemingly endless array of similar screwups. When they’re not crooks, our leaders all too often seem to be incompetents.

If this were just one-sided anger at the Obama Administration, then it would be troubling, but not dangerous. But if, as seems plausible, a majority of Americans don’t think a Republican administration would represent a substantial improvement, then we’ve got a bigger problem. If voters think that they can’t vote their way out of a problem, then they may look to other solutions.

Does this tell you Trump worshipers anything?

Playing with Fire, Republican Bigwigs Want to Take Out Cruz: Party officials and strategists believe that if Trump wins Iowa, Rubio’s path to the nomination is clearer.

Standard Operating Procedure 303 can always be negated by ruthless application of Rule .303. "The US Government Has an Internet Killswitch — and It’s None of Your Business."

On Monday the Supreme Court declined to hear a petition from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) that sought to force the Department of Homeland Security to release details of a secret “killswitch” protocol to shut down cellphone and internet service during emergencies. EPIC has been fighting since 2011 to release the details of the program, which is known as Standard Operating Procedure 303. EPIC writes, “On March 9, 2006, the National Communications System (‘NCS’) approved SOP 303, however it was never released to the public. This secret document codifies a ‘shutdown and restoration process for use by commercial and private wireless networks during national crisis.’”

Rule .303.

Inside the Special Operations Combat Medic Course

The major bleeds never change. Nor do the sequences for each of them. If you understand how to identify and treat each of the six major bleeds in CTM you’ll be set up for success. But remember, if TPA was “a kick in the balls”, then CTM as the same instructor put it, is: “a battle-ax to the balls”… (again, pardon my French…). It’s excellent training. I can honestly say I’ve never done anything so challenging as CTM. When you understand it and get it right it’s a good feeling.

The Evolution Of The Combat Boot In The US Military

Wars are fought and ultimately won by the troops who slog through grime and uneven ground to take the hill. One of the most important and easily overlooked pieces of equipment for that service member is the combat boot.

What was old is new again. Contractor Working to put Jeeps Back on Battlefield

A North Carolina defense contractor’s project could land Jeeps back on the battlefield as the U.S. Army looks for inexpensive, lightweight, unarmored vehicles that can be flown into remote locations. The Army wants to find vehicles that can ferry troops and cargo over rough terrain in situations that don’t call for heavily armored vehicles, and workers at Charlotte-based Hendrick Dynamics have developed a specifically modified Jeep Wrangler they believe can fill that void, according to The Blade.

AJPH ‘Smart Gun Study’ a Transparent Exercise in Junk ‘Science’ Agenda Propaganda.

The first thing that strikes anyone interested in reality is what the media is presenting to the public as settled science is published under the category heading of “AJPG Editorial.” It’s an opinion piece!

Try it and watch what happens. Collectivists screwing up their bravado to actually ban semi-autos.

'The new target for gun bans: All semiautomatic weapons?'

Pay no attention to the black-robed villain behind the curtain.

"Fast and Furious Litigation: Losing the Battle to Win the War?"

Last week, Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued an important opinion in Oversight Committee v. Lynch, the subpoena enforcement litigation related to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s investigation into Operation Fast and Furious. Media outlets generally reported it as a win for Congress and loss for the Executive. In an acute sense, that is true — Judge Jackson ordered the Justice Department to produce sensitive materials that reflect deliberations about how to respond to congressional requests and media inquiries. However, the opinion is a much more complicated ruling that reinforces some longstanding executive branch legal arguments that Congress has perennially disputed. In the longer term, this opinion may actually be a win for the executive branch, despite being ordered to hand over documents the President designated as privileged.

Those poor overworked bureaucrats of the federal secret political police. FBI official: 'Perfect storm' imperiling gun background checks

The surge of criminal background checks required of new gun purchasers has been so unrelenting in recent months that the FBI had been forced to temporarily halt the processing of thousands of appeals from prospective buyers whose firearm purchase attempts have been denied.

In re Trump the demagogue. Do not count on politics to save you. We can only rely upon the Lord, ourselves alone -- and our rifles.

"Trump Doubles-Down On Shooting Comment."

"You Need A Soul Check Before You Vote For Donald Trump."

Given my previous post "Eating the turd, with or without ketchup. Demagoguery is as demagoguery does. But those who blindly follow 'pretended patriots' out of anger are simply stupid," it has been demanded of me "well, who are you for? Cruz?"

Of all of the GOP candidates I must say that Cruz is the most constitutionally consistent and loyal, but my answer is: why must I vote for anyone? Do I believe that politics alone will save the Founder's Republic? No, I do not. Like the Irish, I believe in Sinn Fein:" Ourselves Alone. I spent the past 20 years dealing with the real world consequences of GOP failures. How can I now place any faith that any one person or party represents a painless way to restore the Republic?

The constitutional militia movement came about because the GOP failed to do its duty of effective investigation and oversight. The OKC bombing private investigation came about for the same reason. My participation as a citizen journalist in investigating ATF and FBI scandals was driven by the obvious failures of the "mainstream" press. My enunciation of the Three Percent concept and my organization of the armed civil disobedience campaign flowed from the obvious failures of the NRA and others to defend our natural and God-given rights. Why then do any of you, my faithful readers, place ANY confidence in a single man or a political party or an advocacy group?

WHY MUST I CHOOSE BETWEEN THE VARYING TASTE AND BOUQUETS OF TURD SANDWICHES? Why do some of you get sucked into these false choices despite twenty plus years of lies and serial cowardice of people who do the same thing to you again and again and laugh at your credulous, child-like faith in the power of horse excrement and wishful thinking?

Think and act for yourselves, locally, organizing people you know and trust and quit believing that Santa Claus is going to bring you a restored republic by way of electoral politics. Trust in the Lord, ourselves alone, and our rifles.

Three from Herschel Smith.

"Pistol Caliber Carbines And Personal Defense Weapons."

"Concerning Islamic Migrants And Dance Of The Ass Clown Troupe In Finland."

"My Worthless Politicians – Richard Burr And Robert Pittenger."

Kurt Schlichter: "Buy Ammo."

“A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition.” -- Rudyard Kipling.

"I have never, ever had anyone tell me that he had too much ammunition. Not in a combat zone, not in a civil disaster, not even in peacetime. Never. Nor have I lived through a time where our governing class was so deeply corrupt, so utterly foolish, and so dangerously focused on the perpetuation of its own power that it risked bringing down everything we have built not merely in the United States but in the entire West. Right now, if you are watching the news, you have questions about the future. And the answer to all of them is to buy ammo."

Buying ammo is a no-lose proposition. Look, the worst thing that happens if you buy more ammo is that you have more ammo. Plus, much of our consumer ammo is made by hardworking Americans, and many of those ammo makers are located in red states where the right to keep and bear arms is celebrated and respected. So you’re helping fellow conservative Americans, which is good. And you’re infuriating people like that sanctimonious, Second Amendment-hating incompetent infesting the White House, which is great.

Of course, buying ammo presumes you have already fulfilled your duty as a law-abiding, able-bodied American citizen and obtained sufficient firearms for the defense of yourself, your family, your community, and your Constitution. I can’t tell you how many people in the last year have confessed to me that they have finally decided to visit their local gun seller to do what they had put off for far too long and transition from sheep to sheepdog.

A handgun and a long weapon per adult is merely the minimum. We call that “a good start.” Now, while you can really efficiently carry only two weapons at once, when all hell breaks loose you’re going to have friends who were the grasshopper to your ant and did not prepare for winter. You may wish to share the contents of your armory with them when the time comes; keep in mind that the only thing in a gunfight that’s better than having a black combat rifle is having your buddy there to provide supporting fire with a black combat rifle. Or a shotgun – diversity is a good thing.

Don’t forget training. Malpractice with a weapon is a bad thing, particularly when the foolishness of our leaders has led to the kind of chaos where hospitals are deserted and antibiotics are hard to come by. I oversaw the weapons training of at least 20,000 troops over my career (Sergeants actually do the training; officers oversee the planning, resourcing, and big picture range operations, then find their sharpest sergeant to run them through some refresher drills so they can shoot “Expert” when they hit the firing line and qualify in front of everyone). I am a big fan of weapons training. You need to learn safety, and you also need to learn how to hit what you are shooting at. Don’t be like the gangbanging, side-shooting nimrods in Democrat inner cities who can’t hit the other scumbags they’re shooting at and instead take out nice ladies walking home from church. Having lots of ammo on hand facilitates training.

Now, many of our urban liberal friends will not understand why we insist on ensuring that we have plenty of guns and ammo. They are, not coincidentally, the same urban liberals who don’t understand how creating economic and political chaos by screwing up the economy, coddling crooks, allowing unrestricted immigration, refusing to defeat our enemies, and frittering away the rule of law all act to undermine this wonderful island of relative peace and stability we call the United States. The über-beta editor of a well-known liberal website once chided me on Twitter for pointing out the fact that civilization walks on a tightrope over a chasm of chaos, telling me I was essentially nuts for thinking this could all fall apart much faster and much more violently than any of us imagine. But I was not nuts. I was remembering. I was remembering Los Angeles on fire during the Rodney King riots. I spent three weeks on the streets with the Army during that little life lesson based out of an armory south of I-10 and east of the 405. Let’s just say that it was a looty, shooty area. So I don’t need chaos lessons from some tweedy femboy, nor do you. It may not be apocalypse now, but it could very well be apocalypse soon.

Do you think our elite is going to protect you during the next “uprising?” Remember, it’s a “riot” only if elite liberals are at risk like they were when Beverly Hills got threatened; it’s an “uprising” if only you are. Remember that “stand down” order in Baltimore? Do you think the Iranians and our other enemies haven’t been watching Team Feckless in inaction and thought about popping off a hot rock or two a hundred miles above Kansas City to fry all our wonderful electronic gizmos with EMP? A couple days after our logistics networks go down those urban hipsters are going to learn what really constitutes a “food desert.” Do you think a country this politically divided can’t devolve into violence? People in Kosovo were pretty sure everything was hunky dory while Tito was alive. People resolved their differences through the institutions. And then Tito died, and the game changed. In just a few years, it became very bad.

Right now we have a president who thinks he can ignore or modify the law unilaterally, justifying it with the baffling argument that he shouldn’t have to ask Congress because Congress will just say “No” – which I always thought was kind of the point of checks and balances. So what happens when President Clinton, who identified you and me and the 50% of Americans who aren’t her supporters as her enemies, decides she gets to make her own laws because, well, she knows better and feels like it? Nothing good.

But deterrence is a wonderful thing. An armed, trained populace is not only prepared for when things go bad, but the fact that it is armed and trained makes it much less likely that things will go bad in the first place. Last year, Americans voted for liberty by buying well over 15 million new guns. That’s roughly 40,000 a day, every day. That’s enough to arm three infantry divisions. Every. Single. Day.

Just don’t forget to buy ammo.

"EOTech Breaks Silence over Defective Sights."

EOTech, the maker of a once popular tactical optic, is trying to rebuild customer confidence that was damaged in the wake of a crippling, civil fraud lawsuit over defective rifle sights. Late last year, L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. -- the parent company of EOTech -- agreed to pay $25.6 million to settle a lawsuit that accuses the defense firm of knowingly selling the U.S. military and government agencies optics that failed in extreme temperatures and humid weather conditions. EOTech has supplied thousands of holographic weapons sights to infantry and special operations units that fought in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as law enforcement agencies and civilian consumers. At SHOT Show 2016, EOTech officials displayed a new openness to customers in an attempt to explain the specifics of the problems and what the firm has done to fix them. "We are trying to make people whole and make sure that they are satisfied with their product," John Bailey, director of Marketing for EOTech said Wednesday. "A day and a half into the show, I think there is a positive outlook; I think they are happy we are communicating and what we are communicating now because it took a long time for us to be able to communicate."

Eating the turd, with or without ketchup. Demagoguery is as demagoguery does. But those who blindly follow "pretended patriots" out of anger are simply stupid.

"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?" Trump told an enthusiastic audience at a Christian school, Dordt College. "It's like incredible." Donald Trump: Supporters would stick with me if I shot someone 'in the middle of Fifth Avenue'

The same day Donald Trump used the podium at a Christian school to reflect that he could do murder and and still be embraced by his secular worshipers, I was at a prayer meeting at my church. This was the final day of 21 days of prayer and there was an overflow crowd of thousands, spilling over from the sanctuary into the theater next door. In my church, folks pray with their hands open, palms up, symbolizing our openness to God's will and not our own. The room rippled with electricity, and the power of God was evident to every participant.

When I later heard of Trump's boast, I reflected upon the jarring irony of the two scenes in similar venues and shook my head at the sheer brazen demagoguery that Trump's performance represented. The story relates that the response of the audience (most of whom if asked I'm sure would self-identify as Christians) was "enthusiastic."

The Founders, whether Federalist or Anti-federalist, perceived the dangers of demagoguery to their new Republic as being the greatest threat it faces. Here are two representative quotes from either side of the argument at the time:

"A dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants." -- Federalist No. One, Alexander Hamilton.

And this one from the uncompromising Elbridge Gerry:

The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The people do not want virtue, but are the dupes of pretended patriots. -- Elbridge Gerry, Constitutional Convention Monday May 31, 1787.

Gerry also said this: "It is the duty of every man, though he may have but one day to live, to devote that day to the good of his country."

Trump and his followers maintain that they are doing what they are doing for the good of the country. They point that Trump, whatever his flaws, couldn't be worse than the last four occupants of the White House. I was on a radio call in show the other morning and had this argument pulled out in Trump's defense.

"Whoa up," I insisted. "What you are doing now is arguing over the varying qualities of excrement." I continued, "What you are saying is that some turds are big and smelly and you do not like them. You are saying 'I don't like those turds. I prefer my turds to be small and less odorous." The hosts of the show laughed. Now Grandpa Vanderboegh told me that it was possible to eat a turd if you had enough ketchup. But the fact of the matter is that you have to be persuaded that you WANT to eat that turd very badly and you have to conjure up the ketchup yourself.

Donald Trump, as near as i can make out, is absolutely unprincipled and like all demagogues is saying what he believes he needs to say in order to achieve his ends. My concern is that he is obviously as much of an insecure personality as Obama and, like Obama, gets his "principles" in the mirror every morning when he wakes up. Taken together, their proclaimed fidelity to the limits of the Constitution are so much fart in the wind. Only when the mask slips as at Dordt College, do you get a sense of Trump's inner demagogic voyage of discovery. To paraphrase George Corley Wallace, if you put Obama and Trump in a barrel and rolled them down the hill, there would always be an unprincipled son of Beelzebub on top.

This will cost me more than a few readers, I'm sure. But as I don't expect to last long enough to vote in the upcoming election (although I might make the Alabama primary) I can at least go on record as to where I stand. And since I lack that longevity that most of y'all take for granted, you won't have say to me in the fullness of time that I was right about demagogues. Like prostitutes of a more innocent nature, the joyful experience is fleeting but the diseases they bring are forever.

What the ChiCom Propaganda Apparatus Managed to Deliver Without My Help. John Lott, collectivist stooge and useful idiot, speaking with absolutely no personal experience of militia, sneers at our motivations and downplays our numbers.

In political jargon, useful idiot is a term for people perceived as propagandists for a cause whose goals they are not fully aware of, and who are used cynically by the leaders of the cause. -- Wikipedia.

Readers may recall my recent refusal to cooperate in our own demonization.

The Chicoms had no trouble finding a useful idiot, however: meet John Lott, talking out his ass about something he knows absolutely nothing about.

Readers with longer memories may recall that Lott tracked me down in the crowd following my speech on the steps of the CT state house in April 2013 at the time of the Sandy Hook Intolerable Act and denounced me bitterly as someone who "alienated political allies" with my "irresponsible" advocacy of armed civil disobedience.

Ah well, once a collectivist stooge, always a collectivist stooge, I guess. Perhaps he should do another book entitled "More Propaganda, Less Principle."

How Many Times Can You Die for Liberty?

There is a place for the loud, the fiery, the ‘troops’ who stand at the Malheurs and the Bundy Ranches and the federal courthouses. They are needed. They are the front line of the fight, and when the siren call sounds, they answer. But there is also a place for those who choose to engage in a hundred smaller acts rather than the big, ultimate one. They work in the shadows, they are willing to be the faceless, nameless cog in the machine; they are willing to be the stop on the underground trail, the safe house, the gray man behind the scenes. They are willing to learn what they do not know, train in what they cannot yet do, and be whatever is needed. They do not seek the glory of giving it all for liberty; they seek the quiet knowledge that even if the world never learns their name, they have contributed their lives, their character and their actions to the beautiful ideal of freedom. They are the resistance. And the movement needs far more of them.

1936-2016: 80th anniversary of the anti-tank gasoline bomb. "The Molotov Cocktail as Battlefield Innovation."

Improvised incendiary devices were used for the first time in the Spanish Civil War between July 1936 and April 1939, before they became known as "Molotov cocktails". In 1936, General Francisco Franco ordered Spanish Nationalist forces to use the weapon against Soviet T-26 tanks supporting the Spanish Republicans in a failed assault on the Nationalist stronghold of Seseña, near Toledo, 40 km (25 mi) south of Madrid. After that, both sides used simple petrol bombs or petrol-soaked blankets with some success. -- Wikipedia.

Finnish soldier armed with a Molotov Cocktail.

But even with the knowledge that war might be coming, Finland could only muster a fifth of the manpower and a fraction of the modern weaponry of the USSR and had little advanced weaponry to defeat Soviet tanks. When the Soviets crossed the border in late November, their military planners anticipated a war would last for only a week or two. It lasted until March in no small part because of the Molotov cocktail.

The Molotov cocktail is an elegantly simple weapon, needing only a bottle and some flammable materials like gasoline or tar. Using either a basic fuse or even an old rag, a soldier sets the end on fire and hurls the weapon so the force of impact will shatter the glass and ignite the flammable materials inside. While the weapon was first employed during the Spanish Civil War in 1936, the Winter War was where it first became truly famous. It is also when the weapon got its modern name. The Finns sarcastically named it for the Soviet Foreign Minister, Vyacheslev Molotov, after he claimed Soviet bombers were dropping food aid to starving children in Helsinki. The Molotov cocktail was the perfect accompaniment to “Molotov’s bread baskets.”

"Bloomberg, Sensing an Opening, Revisits a Potential White House Run."

Go for it, big boy. Split that collectivist vote.

Mr. Bloomberg, 73, has already taken concrete steps toward a possible campaign, and has indicated to friends and allies that he would be willing to spend at least $1 billion of his fortune on it, according to people briefed on his deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss his plans. He has set a deadline for making a final decision in early March, the latest point at which advisers believe Mr. Bloomberg could enter the race and still qualify to appear as an independent candidate on the ballot in all 50 states.

"Obama asked to bar importation of assault-style guns."

Collectivist tyranny is like rust, it never quits.

Engel initiated both letters. The letter also included 15 New York lawmakers. Both letters make the same argument — that the president has broad authority under the 1968 Gun Control Act to impose a stricter ban on the importation of certain guns. “The Gun Control Act prohibits the importation into the United States of any firearm that is not ‘generally recognized as particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes,’" the letter states. “The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has already said that this ban includes ‘semiautomatic assault rifles’ with ‘military configuration features.’" The administration’s current policy excludes only “specific parts and components," the letter said. President George H. W. Bush imposed a ban on military-style assault weapons after five children were killed and 30 teachers and students were wounded in 1989 at Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, California.

Violent Criminals, Not the Police, Pose the Real Threat to African-Americans

The Black Lives Matter movement has dangerously distorted the reality of policing, crime, and race. It is other black civilians, not the police, who overwhelmingly perpetrate violence in poor, minority communities. Sadly, the fierce hostility currently directed at law enforcement in the streets has led officers to back off of proactive policing in the neighborhoods that need it most. The result has been an even greater loss of black lives to gun violence.

Saudi Arabia's Secret Holdings of U.S. Debt Are Suddenly a Big Deal

It’s a secret of the vast U.S. Treasury market, a holdover from an age of oil shortages and mighty petrodollars: Just how much of America’s debt does Saudi Arabia own? But now that question -- unanswered since the 1970s, under an unusual blackout by the U.S. Treasury Department -- has come to the fore as Saudi Arabia is pressured by plunging oil prices and costly wars in the Middle East. In the past year alone, Saudi Arabia burned through about $100 billion of foreign-exchange reserves to plug its biggest budget shortfall in a quarter-century. For the first time, it’s also considering selling a piece of its crown jewel -- state oil company Saudi Aramco. The signs of strain are prompting concern over Saudi Arabia’s outsize position in the world’s largest and most important bond market.

There they go, soliciting civil war again.

Georgia Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Ban, Seize ‘Assault Weapons’

From the First Gulf War to Islamic State: How America Was Seduced by the “Easy War”

“Air power is an unusually seductive form of military strength, in part because, like modern courtship, it appears to offer gratification without commitment.” Nearly two decades and multiple military interventions later, the United States still desperately clings to airpower as a panacea to armed conflict.

Smuggling soars as Venezuela's economy sinks

Driven by a deepening economic crisis, smuggling across Venezuela's land and maritime borders - as well as illicit domestic trading - has accelerated to unprecedented levels and is transforming society. Although smuggling has a centuries-old history here, the socialist government's generous subsidies and a currency collapse have given it a dramatic new impetus. As the formal economy tanks and businesses go under, more and more people have turned to myriad illicit schemes to trade food, medicine and gasoline. Criminal gangs, the poor, professionals and government officials are all cashing in.

Throwing away the Mandate of Heaven.

Hong Kong’s Missing Booksellers

The fear and outrage that is spreading in Hong Kong is feeding anti-Communist and separatist sentiments there. This should worry Beijing, and so should the condemnation it has received from Western governments. (Mr. Gui is a naturalized Swedish citizen, and Mr. Lee holds a British passport.) But the fallout was also so predictable that one wonders how China’s leaders, supposedly grandmasters of strategic machination, went about this political calculus.

The Chinese government’s questionable management of its financial markets recently has already suggested that it is seriously disconnected from reality. And now it is using brute force to snuff out a tiny Hong Kong publisher of two-bit political gossip. Is the Communist Party simply becoming more ruthless in quashing dissenting voices, or is its political judgment slipping?

"Why Iraqi and Syrian Tanks Are Wearing This Weird MacGyvered Armor."

The plethora of anti-tank weapons force people to dream up all kinds of odd tank mods​.

"The U.S. Army Wants Some Tank-Busting Silver Bullets."

We're talking about something more exotic. the slugs known as explosively formed penetrators (EFPs), which are fired by some anti-armor weapons. An explosively formed penetrator starts out as a shallow metal plate or lens, backed by an explosive charge. When the charge detonates, the plate is blasted into a streamlined, aerodynamic slug travelling at high speed over dozens or hundreds of meters. . .

While many EFPs are made of copper, in recent years the preferred metal has been a more unusual one, tantalum. Because it is twice as dense as copper, Tantalum makes a much more effective penetrator.

Tantalum is used in the manufacture of capacitors for phones, computers, and other electronics, so it is in high demand. The price can soar over $200 a pound. In addition, shaping Tantalum into an EFP liner is challenging. It has to be made into a disc, flattened in a forge, annealed at high temperature, and then "machine domed" into the right shape. That adds to the cost.

The Army's search for a more economic alternative led to silver—specifically, a new form of nanostructured silver that is as strong as steel. Metals have a crystalline structure, and the size and arrangement of these crystals affect the strength of the finished article. According to the Army, normal silver has a yield strength of 50-150 Mpa (megapascals), where nanostructured silver will have a yield strength of 250-500 Mpa. Their requirement is for silver with a strength of 300 Mpa. (For comparison, the A36 steel commonly used in the construction industry has a yield strength of 215 Mpa). They know it's possible. A paper published last year by a team at Prague's Institute of Chemical Technology in the Czech Republic describes a new method of producing high-strength nano-crystalline silver by means of "selective leaching combined with spark plasma sintering."

If this project were successful, it could lead to cheaper EFP weapons. At the moment silver costs $224 per pound, in the same ballpark as tantalum. But it's easier to manufacture with silver, which could drive down the overall cost.

New silver EFPs may not be limited to being big, cheaper tank-busters. The baguette-sized Spike missile has been tested with an EFP warhead for taking on light vehicles. The U.S. Army may never need to kill an armored werewolf, but if the occasion arises, they're have the right ammo ready to go.

"George Patton": Oregon Lessons Learned – Or – Lessons You Better Learn.

"Consider who you are going to support."

Fast and Furious Scandal Resurfaces—Media Ignore It

The liberal media avoid reporting on President Obama’s many scandals at any cost, and Fast and Furious is no exception. Despite the media’s studied avoidance of these scandals, their impact continues.

On torture, Cruz stands alone

Going against the GOP's rhetorical grain is Trump's main rival for the party's nomination, Ted Cruz. "Torture is wrong, unambiguously. Period. The end," the Texas senator said in December 2014. Cruz, whose own father was tortured in Cuba, reaffirmed that position last month, saying that "America does not need torture to protect ourselves."

Yesterday was a pretty awful day.

Sorry for my absence here, but as this thing progresses the loss of strength is palpable. This comes as the demands to get things done increases. I warned y'all that you would see this in the blog and it is certainly here. My apologies.

Now the ChiComs are trolling for useful militia idiots.

Received this email from someone who thought he was addressing a "look at me, I'm on teevee" weak-minded media whore. (You will note he didn't even spell my name right.)

From: Matt Shirley matt.shirley@cctv-america.com

To: GeorgeMason1776@aol.com

Sent: Wed, Jan 20, 2016 5:02 pm

Subject: Television Interview for Mike Vanderboergh

Mike,

How are you doing today? I’m Matt Shirley with CCTV America’s The Heat, a news-talk show based in Washington DC and broadcasting to over a billion televisions around the world.

I’m emailing to see if you might be available for a television interview? This would be for Tomorrow, hopefully around 12:30 PM Eastern.

We’re doing a program based on militias in the US. We want to know why, in many people’s minds, the government has alienated them, and what changes are taking away from the country. This would be a one-on-one conversation with our hose.

Please shoot me a phone call or email at your earliest convenience. I’d love to speak with you.

Thanks,

Matt

Matt Shirley | GUEST PRODUCER | The Heat, CCTV AMERICA

My reply:

To: matt.shirley matt.shirley@cctv-america.com

Sent: Thu, Jan 21, 2016 1:43 am

Subject: Re: Television Interview for Mike Vanderboergh

Mr, Shirley,

If THIS -- http://www.cctv-america.com/2016/01/12/the-heat-us-gun-control-effort -- is an example of your journalistic "objectivity" then you don't know the difference between excrement and shinola, nor for that matter between facts and propaganda. Or more likely, you do and are simply parroting a collectivist party line. And that party, it seems, is the Chinese Communist Party: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCTV_America.

You offer me "a one-on-one conversation with our hose." Now that is either a misspelling of "host" or a Freudian slip. As an ex-communist myself I'm inclined to believe the latter.

I would, however, like you to pass along a message back up the chain to your party masters. The constitutional militias of the United States could not have armed as quickly and capably as we did in the 1990s without access to the Type 56 SKS and Kalashnikov pattern semi-automatic rifles exported by Peoples Liberation Army fronts such as Norinco and Polytech. We purchased over four million of them in the run-up to the so-called "Assault Weapons Ban." This is not to mention the billions of rounds of inexpensive ammunition that came with them. In my own collection I have a pre-ban Kalashnikov; a Type 56 SKS Vietnam war trophy pried from the dead hands of a Viet Cong cadre in 1969; a Chinese clone of the M1911 .45 automatic and another clone of the U.S. battle rifle in 7.62 NATO, the M14S. Please tell your masters that we appreciated their assistance in the 90s as a movement and that I am personally grateful for the opportunity to possess inexpensive weapons from Chinese Communist factories with which to kill collectivists of all stripes -- foreign and domestic -- should that become necessary.

As for the suggested television interview, I decline your offer to be a useful idiot stooge in a ChiCom propaganda video and politely suggest that you blow it out your Little Red Book. Mao, you may remember, quite famously said "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Precisely. We've got them. We will not surrender them. We will use them if attacked. You cannot talk us out of them. Deal with it.

Mike Vanderboegh

Andrzej Caruk: "Communism is not just a threat from the past."

As a Polish-Canadian immigrant I am well aware of communism’s fiercely atheistic and bigoted ideology, along with its brutal consequences. In view of our increasingly dangerous world, there is an urgent need now for a physical reminder of the reality of living (in the past or present) under such a totalitarian ideology as communism, founded by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and further disseminated like a deadly epidemic by Vladimir Lenin, the Russian revolutionary – a “hero” to some people. This ideological plague is estimated to have killed about 100 million people worldwide, ranging from the Great Famine under Mao to Holodomor in Ukraine to the killing fields in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge to Joseph Stalin’s purges.

The conspiracy against the Constitution that keeps on killing.

".50 caliber rifle found inside El Chapo's Mexican hideout was sold through government Fast and Furious program."

"World faces wave of epic debt defaults, fears central bank veteran."

The global financial system has become dangerously unstable and faces an avalanche of bankruptcies that will test social and political stability, a leading monetary theorist has warned. "The situation is worse than it was in 2007. Our macroeconomic ammunition to fight downturns is essentially all used up," said William White, the Swiss-based chairman of the OECD's review committee and former chief economist of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

David Codrea: "Much Ado About Nothing."

But keep acting like you're some kind of pit bull for justice, Jason Chaffetz. You've been useless on Twin Peaks and useless on helping Jay Dobyns, and you've essentially done next to nothing with what Darrell Issa turned over to you on Gunwalker. But yeah, go ahead and pledge how you're going to keep on keeping on until you get to the truth. Like I said, yawn.

Collectivist demands: "State Leaders Must Act on Gun Violence." They can't get the politicos in their states to enforce the post-Sandy Hook laws, but they want more nonetheless.

"Now, state and local leaders must rise to the president's challenge. They must respond to the crisis of gun violence in a manner that makes our communities safer and honors the epidemic's hundreds of thousands of victims and survivors."

Klayman First To File Lawsuit Against Obama's Gun Control Executive Orders

A challenge in federal court has been filed against the expansion of gun control laws by President Barack Hussein Obama. Larry Klayman filed the first-in-the-nation lawsuit Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida (Case No. 9:16cv80087). See here to view complaint.

Elitist David Stockman (yes, THAT David Stockman) rewrites history and gets most everything about the right to arms wrong.

"Leviathan, Gun Control And The Baleful Legacy Of The 2nd Amendment."

"O’Reilly ‘Reasonable’ Gun Law Bluster Doesn’t Factor in Principled Defiance."

"O’Reilly’s 'reasonable' gun laws are to the left of what Barack Obama and Michael Bloomberg will admit to wanting."

"We Are Sick of Paying the Price for Elitists to Feel Smug."

"Oh, and if one of them gets hammered and uses his shiny new illegal alien driver’s license to ram his beat up Chevy into a car packed with your son and his friends, that’s a small price to pay for the elite redlining its collective sense of moral self-satisfaction. And if an illegal rapes and murders your daughter, well, better an American woman die than some dreamer’s dream of easy pickings be denied. Your life is not a priority. It’s not even a consideration."

Two from Herschel Smith.

Pistol-Packin’ Christians

Islamic Jihad Targets The Weak And Defenseless, So Prepare To Defend Yourself, Your Family And Your Tribe

Ammon Bundy is seeking a exit strategy. Meanwhile collectivists are wetting their red diapers and demanding blood.

"Oregon standoff: Talk show host to hold 'workshop' on constitution in Burns."

Hall's visit comes as members of the refuge occupation say they hope to reschedule a meeting previously planned for Friday, in which they had planned to outline their strategy for ending the occupation. LaVoy Finicum, a spokesman for the group, said he expects to reschedule the meeting for Monday night, although plans have not been finalized. It's unclear whether the rescheduled meeting would be held in conjunction with Hall's visit.

"FBI/ATF apparently doesn't give a rat's ass about Domestic Terrorism in our face."

"Europe’s New Medieval Map: As the European Union unravels, the continent is reverting to divisions that go back centuries."

The decades when we thought of Europe as stable, predictable and dull are over. The continent’s map is becoming medieval again, if not yet in its boundaries then at least in its political attitudes and allegiances. The question today is whether the EU can still hope to permanently replace the multicultural Habsburg Empire, which for centuries sprawled across Central and Eastern Europe and sheltered its various minorities and interests. The answer will depend not only on what Europe itself does but also on what the U.S. chooses to do. Geography is a challenge, not a fate.

Spent pretty much all day yesterday being interviewed by a documentary filmaker.

From 10 AM to almost 8PM. Sorry I can't give you any other details but it is a fair bet that whenever the finished product comes out, I won't be around for the premiere. It was, in some measure my swan song for the record, covering my perspective of my conversion "on the road to Damascus" from the dark side of collectivism and the past twenty plus years in the liberty movement, including my experiences in the militia movement post Waco, my participation in the OKC bombing private investigation, Fast and Furious and the origins of the Three Percent concept as well as the armed civil disobedience campaigns in various states. Consequently, I am spent myself. Will try to have more posts later today after church.

Matt Bracken: "Calling BS on the official story of the Iranian capture of two US riverine boats."

"This entire situation is in my area of expertise. I can state with complete confidence that both Iran and our own State Department are lying. The boats did not enter Iranian waters. They were overtaken in international waters by Iranian patrol boats that were so superior in both speed and firepower that it became a "hands up!" situation, with automatic cannons in the 40mm to 76mm range pointed at them point-blank. Surrender, hands up, or be blown out of the water. I assume that the Iranians had an English speaker on a loudspeaker to make the demand. This takedown was no accident or coincidence, it was a planned slap across America's face."

See also: "Obama allows sale of aircraft to Iran as nuclear deal nears implementation."

"Growing number of police chiefs, sheriffs join call to arms."

“There is momentum in the country for expanding the right to carry,” New York University Law Professor James Jacobs told FoxNews.com. “But the people who are leading the charge on gun control, they say momentum is changing in their direction. There seems to be a real disconnect here in terms of peoples’ perceptions of what the trends are.”

Bloomberg propaganda outlet masquerades as "reliable news source." "Gun Show Organizers Are Set to Give Obama’s Executive Actions Their Most Public Test."

"I don't believe in fairy tales," says a board member of a trade group set to meet with the ATF next week.

Never heard of The Trace? Here's a big surprise: It's backed by Bloomberg.

Praxis: Gun Tests Magazine - May 2014 Issue - AR-15 mags by brand with torture testing results."

Received this via email from a faithful reader and supporter. with the note: "All mags they rated below an 'A' have been edited from this post."

"Troy Industries Battlemag Magazine AR-15 30-Round Polymer, $14.29 (MidwayUSA.com #859891) The Troy Industries Battlemag is an advanced polymer 30-round magazine. The polymers used in the magazine are chemical, biological and impact resistant. The feed lips have been reinforced and the mag uses an anti-tilt follower. The mag body features a aggressive scale texture that provides a sure grip but will also extract from magazine pouches easily. The spine of the magazine is designed to prevent over-insertion common with some polymer mags. The floor plate features a shock absorbing pull tab, or can be used with the flush locking plate. Functions with all M4, M16, AR-15, HK416, and FN SCAR rifles.

The Troy magazine made it to the top of the list just below the NHMTG, PMag and OKAY magazines. This is based upon the fact that the Troy Mag lost more average rounds — a total of 9 — during drop testing. It did not crack, however and remained functional. It lost no rounds during the vehicle testing. Having passed all other testing and surviving until the firing test, the Troy Mag is a robust and reliable magazine. Gun Tests Grade: A-

OKAY Industries USGI 30-Round Mag, $8.99 (Gunsamerica.com) The OKAY magazines gave excellent results. They were tied with the NHMGT magazines, and the Brownells in practical terms was no better. The only slight mark against the OKAY was that in corrosion testing, these magazines picked up a light dusting of red rust the others did not, but function wasn’t affected. The OKAY magazines may have been older than the others tested. Gun Tests Grade: A-

NHMTG AR-15/M16 30-Round Magazine MA02L, $19.99 (Brownells.com, #100-012-166WB) We tested both 20-round and 30-round NHMTG magazines, both of which made it to the end of the test. However, by the time this issue came out, the 20-round versions were no longer available from Brownells. Function was good and so was durability. These magazines, the OKAY magazine, and the PMag tied for second place by a narrow margin, based on the aggregate number of rounds they lost during various phases of testing. Gun Tests Grade: A

Magpul AR-15/M16 PMag Gen M3 MAG557BLK, $14.20 (Brownells.com #100-011-220WB) The PMag was the top performer among the polymer magazines. Ease of disassembly and general handling were a big plus. Gun Tests Grade: A

Magpul PMag 30 AR/M4 Window Gen M3 MAG556BLK, $17.05 (Brownells.com #100-011-219WB) Despite the use of a slide window, which theoretically weakens the magazine body according to some opinions, the PMag with window actually performed slightly better than the standard PMag, losing fewer total rounds during the test program. When run over by vehicles, this unit and the window did not crack. Gun Tests Grade: A

Brownells 30-Round Gray AR-15/M16 Magazine w/SS Spring 200200, $9.99(Brownells.com #078-000-113WB) These magazines are very similar to the models that Brownells supplies to the US Military. All components are made of mil-spec materials and are manufactured under strict, ISO quality control standards. The heat-treated, welded aluminum body is hard-anodized for superior corrosion resistance, then given a tough, dry-lube coating to eliminate the need for additional lubricants that would attract dust, sand, or dirt. The latest military-type, glass-fiber reinforced composite follower further guarantees flawless feeding in the harshest tactical conditions. We tested the mil-spec stainless-steel spring, but a version with a high lubricity dry-lube-coated chrome silicon spring is also available. They are affordable, well made, and reliable. Gun Tests Grade: A

Our Team Said: "Test 12 was the final test we ran, taking the winners through the first 11 rounds and leaving them fully loaded for a month at full compression. Then we ran more shooting function tests and found there were no feed or fire issues with any of the remaining magazines."

"In our view, the Brownells, NHMTG, and OKAY magazines are excellent examples of aluminum magazines. All of them were easy to maintain, proven to be reliable, and are competitively priced."

"If you prefer polymer bodies, the PMags were both top choices, with the cartridge-counter window option giving that model the edge over the regular PMag. The Troy was also a good choice. If we were buying AR-15 magazines, we would decide whether we wanted aluminum or polymer bodies, then shop the top-ranked items for the best price."

Rough day yesterday

Will have more later about the work weekend, which requires considerably more logistical planning than I anticipated.

More collectivist pukery about Oregon from a graduate of the SPLC PHD program in Big Lie Propaganda.

"Why the Oregon standoff matters: This is no joke; it's a window into far-right radicalism that refuses to seek change through the courts or ballot box."

On presenting the enemy with a hammer to hit you over the head with. Well, I guess they really thought this targeting stuff through thoroughly before they acted, huh?

"Stupid is as stupid does, Forrest."

Why don't we think through the propaganda of letting the enemy make us look like ISIS whether it is real or not? Maybe because they are incapable of thinking ANYTHING through if it doesn't fit with their preconceptions. "4,000 Artifacts Stored at Oregon Refuge Held by Armed Group."

You know, they could have realized a disinformation danger ahead of time and publicly announced at the start they were posting guards on the artifacts, but that would have (1.) made too much sense; and (2.) been impossible given the clown circus personnel pool they had to draw from. Proper planning prevents piss poor performance. And these guys aren't exactly Dwight David Eisenhower before D-Day.

More along the lines of "personnel is policy" in Burns -- "Oregon militia standoff: man arrested driving stolen government vehicle"

Police say Kenneth Medenbach drove the vehicle to town from the Malheur national wildlife refuge – and it’s not his first tangle with the law

13 Hours in Benghazi & C.S. Lewis

“Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point.” -- C.S. Lewis.

C.S. Lewis wrote that a virtuous patriotism becomes “militant only to protect what it loves.” This theme animates 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.