I can’t comment on any of the rest of the gear here, but I can tell you that the Geissele trigger is a major improvement.

Upgrade Your AK.

Communism only made one thing that works, and capitalism can make it even better. Amp up your AK with these exciting accessories.

AK accessories

A. Beyond having an injection-molded polymer exterior for superior ergonomics over traditional AK forearm shortcomings, the Magpul Zhukov Hand Guard–AK47/AK74 includes a full-length aluminum chassis for strength, rigidity and welcome heat dispersion. M-Lok attachment slots for rails, grips or light mounts are located at the three-, six- and 12-o’clock positions in a manner similar to AR-15 handguards. MSRP: $109.95; magpul.com

B. For those who want an upgraded trigger pull for their AK, the ALG Defense AK Trigger Enhanced with Lightning Bow (AKT-EL) is machined from gun-quality alloy steel and has  a corrosion-resistant, manganese-phosphate finish. Designed for the AK-47/AK-74 platforms, it offers a smoother, shorter single-stage pull. Its lightning bow produces a comfortable feel while enhancing trigger control. Best of all, the AKT-EL lends three parts toward 922(r) compliance. MSRP: $115; geissele.com

C. In addition to being a U.S.-made part for 922(r) purposes, the Hogue OverMolded AK-47/AK-74 Grip sports an orthopedic hand-shape as well as compound palm swells with proportioned finger grooves for natural hand positioning. The grip’s exterior is finished with cobblestone texturing that offers ample purchase, while its hollow core provides a sealed storage compartment for batteries or other accessories. MSRP: $34.95; hogueinc.com

D. Offering a no-nonsense, standard-capacity 7.62×39 mm magazine for AK-pattern rifles, Xtech Tactical Mag47 Gen2–30 round AK47 Magazine features super-tough polymer construction paired with a steel-lined cage that reinforces the locking lugs and feed lips for enhanced strength. Its stainless-steel spring includes an anti-bind mechanism, fostering the reliability Kalashnikov enthusiasts expect. MSRP: $29.95; xtechtactical.com

E. Built from high-strength, carbon fiber and glass-reinforced black polymer, ProMag Industries’ Archangel Yugo PAP AK-Series OPFOR Buttstock Set–Black Polymer fits Yugoslavian-pattern, stamped-receiver AKs. Its design allows for an optimal sight picture with both iron sights and optics, and includes several ergonomic features,like four LOP adjustments and a seven-position adjustable cheek riser to customize your cheekweld. MSRP: $63.99; promagindustries.com

Dad & I had been wondering what all the big deal was around this murder trial. Of course as you remember what my first squad leader said about learning from other’s experiences
And if you didn’t know this already

An Unexpected Lesson From the Alex Murdaugh Trial

The trial of South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh for the June 2021 murders of his son and wife is wrapping up and headed to a jury. Throughout the interminable weeks of testimony, I’ve come away with one takeaway from the trial of the Southern princeling.

No, my lesson is not that tunnel-visioned investigators settled on a suspect and then sought to cobble together speculations, missing weapons, evidence, and hatred for the privileged, opioid-addicted good-old-boy, and did what they could to build a circumstantial case against him.

No, my lesson is not that the self-flagellating thief and liar testified that yes, he was a thief and a liar, but believe him now when he says he’s not a murderer. It’ll be interesting to see how the jury received that bit of information.

Prosecutors claimed that the 54-year-old trial attorney murdered his wife and son due to “the imminent threat of ‘personal, legal and financial ruin.” Left unexplained was how the successful trial attorney would solve his financial problems by murdering most of his immediate family. But not everything has to make sense, I guess.

Murdaugh may be convicted. Meanwhile, there are no fewer than two TV treatments of the case basically declaring the hedonistic attorney guilty, guilty, guilty.

During the trial, investigators and experts discussed Maggie Murdaugh’s phone. This is where it got interesting for me.

 

This point was highlighted in the defense attorney’s meandering closing argument, which included this information:

SLED agents didn’t properly preserve Maggie’s phone, causing crucial GPS data from the day of the killings to disappear, [Jim] Griffin said. SLED agents waited too long to extract her phone and they never placed it in a Faraday bag, he said. (These bags shield phones from radio waves.)

“Had they done it, I hope we wouldn’t be here,” Griffin said. “I know it would say … Alex Murdaugh was not driving down Moselle Road with Maggie’s phone in the car and tossed it at whatever time.”

I briefly thought about giving Faraday bags to my family last Christmas after hearing spooks and special operators talking about them. Then the Murdaugh trial prompted me to revisit the idea.

 

The website How to Geek explains what a Faraday bag is:

Faraday bags use the same principles as a Faraday cage to prevent wireless signals from leaving or reaching your devices. So what are the reasons to use one, and how is it different from turning the device off or using airplane mode?

These cages work by surrounding an object with a conductive metal mesh. When an electromagnetic field encounters the cage, it’s conducted around the objects inside. […]

Consider that your smartphone probably doesn’t have a removable battery and that your Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and other internal radios are operated by a software switch—not a physical kill-switch. In other words, you have no way of knowing that your device is really not sending and receiving data when you put it in airplane mode or toggle Wi-Fi off.

[…] [T]here’s nothing wrong with adding it to your personal privacy arsenal. The ability to cut off your devices from wireless communication is a powerful option when you don’t, for example, want Google to know that you’re visiting certain places. If you suspect that your phone has been compromised by serious tracking malware, like a rootkit, these bags provide a non-technical way to deal with the issue immediately. Even hackers can’t hack the laws of physics, after all.

Always assume your phone is pinging a tower. Always.

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Biden is living in a little fantasy world where he believes his wish is law.

Biden takes fire after vowing to ‘ban assault weapons’

President Joe Biden pledged in a speech late Wednesday to ban “assault weapons,” but critics were quick to push back.

Biden made the statement during his remarks at the House Democratic Caucus Issues Conference.

“I know I make some of you uncomfortable, but that little state above me, in Delaware, is one of the — has the highest rate — one of the highest rates of gun ownership,” Biden said. “But guess what? We’re going to ban assault weapons again come hell or high water.”

Biden also called out “high-capacity magazines.” Those comments sparked pushback from critics who pointed to their Second Amendment protections.

“The loss of life is a tragedy whenever it occurs,” U.SS. Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., told The Center Square in response to Biden’s comments. “At the same time, the Second Amendment is not subject to interpretation by bureaucrats in Washington and cannot be taken away by Congress. Rather than confiscating firearms from law-abiding Americans, our priorities should be to protect and equip our police and crack down on violent crime.”

Biden has taken a series of executive actions pushing the boundaries of his Constitutional authority, such as the eviction moratorium and COVID mandates, leading to legal challenges and rulings pushing back on Biden’s agenda.

The U.S. Supreme Court has recently bolstered gun rights. Last summer, the high court struck down a New York gun law that required residents to prove they had “proper cause” to receive a permit to carry a firearm outside the home.

As The Center Square previously reported, the court ruled 6-3 with Chief Justice John Roberts writing the opinion. Roberts wrote that the court “recognized that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect the right of an ordinary, law-abiding citizen to possess a handgun in the home for self-defense.”

Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., in January introduced the “Assault Weapons Ban,” which would “ban the sale, transfer, manufacture and importation of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and other high-capacity ammunition feeding devices.”

“It’s time we stand up to the gun lobby and remove these weapons of war from our streets, or at the very least keep them out of the hands of young people,” Feinstein said in a statement.

A companion bill has support from more than 200 Democrats but has not passed either Chamber this Congress.

“President Biden didn’t have the votes in Congress to get this ineffective and patently unconstitutional measure passed even when Democrats controlled the House,” Amy Swearer, Heritage senior legal fellow, told The Center Square. “He certainly doesn’t have the votes now, when the most recent polls show support for this type of law is lower now than it was in previous years. Unless the president plans on stripping Americans’ Second Amendment rights via executive fiat (a real ‘come hell, high water, or constitutional crisis’ scenario), then it’s difficult to see this as anything more than the President once again blowing smoke on behalf of Gun Control, Inc.”

Dog shot in home invasion; El Paso police say resident shot intruder in return

Two people shot in attempted Glens Falls break-in

Two people were shot in Glens Falls, following what police are calling an attempted home invasion.

The two people shot were breaking into the home when a third person who lived there shot them, a city spokesperson said. The two remained at Albany Medical Center Thursday night, with one in critical condition.

Glens Falls Police and New York State Police were interviewing the alleged shooter and trying to determine what crimes were committed.

All three of the people involved are from the Glens Falls and Hudson Falls area, police said.

Local attorney Tucker Stanclift is representing the person suspected of firing the gun. He described a case of self defense as the break-in unfolded. He did not provide NewsChannel 13 with the identity of his client.

No one has been charged at this time.

Texas lawmaker tries emotional blackmail to push gun control

The state of Texas has been rocked to its core by the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. There’s no mystery why a lot of people are upset.

However, most lawmakers in the state aren’t suddenly shifting with the currents like a windsock at the airport. They’re holding firm to what they think is the right way forward.

That’s a problem for anti-gun lawmakers in the state, though, and some will say anything they can to try and force their colleagues to change their minds.

With the Lone Star State suffering mass shootings with what some call “numbing regularity”, Democratic lawmakers are proposing what they see as “common sense” measures to reduce the number of gun deaths.

“This has to stop. We have to stop the bleeding,” said Houston State Senator Carol Alvarado.…

Among the control measures – increasing the age from 18 to 21 for the purchase of semi-automatic rifles, a “Red-Flag” law to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally unstable, a 72-hour “cooling off” period after buying a firearm, and a mandatory background check for all gun sales.

“The fact that we are sitting here and have the ability to do something to help their grieving and to help stop the mass shooting and we don’t do anything, that’s on us,” said Alvarado.

That is absolutely disgusting.

First, let’s understand that this whole line of “reasoning,” if we can even call it that, is predicated in part on the assumption that everyone actually thinks gun control works, particularly these bills, they’re just not going along with it for whatever reason.

I assure Mrs. Alvarado, we do not.

Yet what bothers me most is this whole guilt trip he engaged in to try and pressure his colleagues. The parents are grieving and they can somehow help simply by forfeiting people’s rights?

Holy crap, that is both the worst argument I’ve ever seen and the most vile.

It’s an attempt at emotional blackmail. “How dare you! You could have eased their suffering if you weren’t such a cold, heartless bastard!”

Again, it’s disgusting.

Imagine the outrage if a lawmaker pushing an anti-abortion bill used a similar talking point. “These parents here lost their daughter when she died after having an abortion. The fact that we are sitting here and have the ability to do something to help their grieving and we won’t do anything, that’s on us.”

There would probably be rioting in the streets over the comment, yet for those who want to see gun control and would lose their minds at my hypothetical example, how is it any different? How?

No, Alvarado made her comment and no one will hold her accountable for it. Even if there was no counterpoint to provide, it wouldn’t somehow make his comments accurate or forgivable.

We do not give up our rights to appease someone’s grieving. We may sympathize with their loss, as we should, but that doesn’t give anyone license to run rampant over our right to keep and bear arms.

And emotional blackmail won’t change that.

March 3

1776 – The first amphibious landing of the United States Marine Corps begins the Battle of Nassau, Bahamas, during the Revolution.

1779 –A small contingent of Continental regulars supported by a larger force of North Carolina and Georgia patriot militia is routed by a slightly smaller force of British regulars and loyalist militia at the Battle of Brier Creek near Savannah, Georgia.

1791 – Congress passes the Internal Revenue Act  providing for taxes on distilled liquor and tobacco products inciting what would later be called the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania.

1820 – Having been sent the bill after passage in the House of Representatives over a year previous, the Senate passes the Missouri Compromise act

1845 – Florida is admitted as the 27th U.S. state.

1849 – The Territory of Minnesota is created

1873 – Congress passes the Comstock Act, making it illegal to send any “obscene literature and articles of immoral use” through the mail.

1891 – The Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming is established as the first national forest in the US

1910 – John D. Rockefeller Jr. announces his retirement from managing his businesses so that he can devote all his time to philanthropy.

1924 – Kemal Atatürk completes his reform of Turkey into a secular state with the deposing of Caliph Abdülmecid II, ending the Ottoman Caliphate.

1931 – The United States adopts The Star-Spangled Banner as its national anthem.

1938 – The Dammam oil well No. 7 in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, makes the first oil strike in the country.

1969 – NASA launches Apollo 9 with astronauts, James A. McDivitt
David R. Scott and Russell L. Schweickart aboard, to test the lunar module in Earth orbit.

1972 – Mohawk Airlines Flight 405, a Fairchild-Hiller FH-227, crashes in a housing area in Albany, New York, killing 16 of the 48 passengers and crew aboard.

1991 – United Airlines Flight 585, a Boeing 737, crashes on its final approach to Colorado Springs killing all 25 passengers and crew aboard and injuring 1 person on the ground.

2005 – Steve Fossett, piloting the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer, becomes the first person to fly an airplane non stop around the world solo without refueling.

It’s only ‘radical’ and causes chaos for the courts who judges don’t really like the idea that securing individual rights is what government is actually all about (see our Declaration of Independence) and hate that a higher court has told them to get back in line.

The Supreme Court’s Radical Second Amendment Jurisprudence is Sowing Chaos in the Lower Courts

In New York State Pistol & Rifle Ass’n v. Bruen, decided last June, the Supreme Court issued one of the most unusual and dangerous opinions in American history. Clarence Thomas’ majority opinion instructed lower court judges to rely exclusively on history and tradition to resolve Second Amendment cases and to completely ignore the government’s asserted safety interests in passing gun control laws. Assuming that a person’s conduct is arguably covered by the Second Amendment’s text, the Justices said, the government can only prevail if it demonstrates that similar laws were enacted in the past.

According to Second Amendment scholar Jake Charles in an excellent new article, since Bruen was decided last June, there have been over 100 state and federal cases challenging gun reform laws. These courts “have received Bruen’s message to supercharge the Second Amendment…. Their collective decisions in the months since the ruling have been scattered, unpredictable, and often internally inconsistent.”

The Court’s exclusive focus on history and tradition in Bruen is a radical departure from how the Court has traditionally decided constitutional law cases. Prior to Bruen, the Justices examined the strength and importance of a constitutional right and compared that to the interests put forward by the government to justify the restriction of that right.

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I’ll take “Because They’re Stupid” for $500, Alex

Why Gun-Control Activists Can’t Have Intelligent Discussions

David Hogg, co-founder of the March for Our Lives gun-control group, recently tweeted what he thinks the Second Amendment means.

“After reading about the history of the second amend and talking with a lot of hist & law professors- I believe the second amendment has been intentionally misinterpreted. It was never meant as an individual right it was created to protect state militias like the national guard,” read Hogg’s tweet.

That legal theory he is parroting has been debunked by historians, by many legal scholars and by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s majority opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) clearly said, “The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.”

What Hogg tweeted next further demonstrated his ignorance.

“It says well regulated militia for a reason. The ‘shall not be infringed’ part means the federal government is not allowed to forcibly disarm state militias. I’m not alone in this interpretation. Over 100 years of jurisprudence back me up on this,” read Hogg’s follow-up tweet.

“Hogg mentions ‘jurisprudence,’ but it seems he does not really understand the term. When contemplating the philosophy of law in the United States as it relates to the Second Amendment, the longest held view of what it protects is an individual right; a view that goes back more than 230 years. There are countless quotes from our Founders—many of whom were deeply involved in the process of writing, debating, and ratifying the Second Amendment—referring to the right of individuals to possess firearms. Even those quotes that mention a ‘militia’ do so in the context of it being comprised of individual citizens who are expected to supply their own arms,” reported the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (ILA).

NRA-ILA also cited several other cases in their analysis, before summing up Hogg by saying, “Ultimately, David Hogg is simply another anti-gun activist, and like most others, he is prone to making false claims about a subject for which he has little understanding.”

This militia argument has been so thoroughly debunked that it is disappointing, brain-numbing and counterproductive to have to again refute it, but such is the anti-intellectualism of today’s gun-control movement; unfortunately, this includes, in this case, David Hogg, a student who Time says is now “studying the history of conservative political movements” at Harvard. Given these tweets, he isn’t getting much of an education.

Today, March 2

537 – The Ostrogoth army under King Vitiges begins the first siege of Rome.

1498 – Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama’s fleet lands at the Island of Mozambique, off north central Mozambique proper.

1776 – Patriot militia units arrest the Royal Governor of Georgia, James Wright, and attempt to prevent capture of supply ships in the ‘Battle of the Rice Boats’ up the Savannah river on the border between Georgia and South Carolina.
On the west side of British occupied Boston, at Lechmere’s Point and Cobble Hill, Continental troops under command of George Washington emplace cannon and begin shelling the city, using that as a diversion to begin construction of fortifications for more cannon on Dorchester Heights, during the nights of March 2 and 3.

1778 – Nathanael Greene is appointed Quartermaster General of the Continental Army under George Washington

1807 – Congress passes An Act to prohibit the importation of slaves…, disallowing the importation of new slaves into the country.

1836 – The Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Texas from Mexico is adopted by the delegates in convention at Washington on the Brazos, Texas.

1867 – The U.S. Congress passes the first Reconstruction Act.

1877 – Just 2 days before the mandated date of inauguration, Congress declares Rutherford B. Hayes the winner of the 1876 presidential election even though Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote.

1901 – Congress passes the Platt Amendment to the 1901 Army Appropriations Bill, limiting the autonomy of Cuba to conduct foreign affairs except under U.S. dominance, as a condition of the withdrawal of American troops from occupation since the end of the Spanish-American War.

1903 – In New York City the Martha Washington Hotel opens, becoming the first hotel exclusively for women.

1917 – President Wilson signs the Jones–Shafroth Act into law, granting U.S. citizenship to anyone born in Puerto Rico on or after April 11, 1899.

1919 – The Comintern – Communist International – meets in Moscow for the first time.

1949 – The U.S. Air Force having fitted the new aircraft for inflight refueling, Captain James Gallagher lands his B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II in Fort Worth, Texas, after completing the first nonstop around the world airplane flight in 94 hours and one minute, just short of 4 days of constant flight.

1965 – The US and Republic of Vietnam Air Force begin Operation Rolling Thunder, a sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam.

1972 – Pioneer 10 is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida with a mission to explore the outer planets.

1983 – Compact discs and players are released for the first time in the United States and other markets.

1991 – Having been fired upon by retreating units of the Iraqi Republican Guards, units of the U.S. 24th Infantry division engage and nearly wipe out the Iraqi force near the Rumaila oil fields, in the Euphrates Valley of southern Iraq.

1995 – Using the Collider Detector and DZero detector devices for experiments with the Tevatron Collider at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, researchers announce the detection of the t ‘top’ quark subatomic particle.

1998 – Data sent from the Galileo spacecraft indicates that Jupiter’s moon Europa (Attempt No Landing There) has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice.

2012 – A tornado outbreak occurs over a large section of the Southern United States and into the Ohio Valley region, resulting in 40 fatalities.

OOps

March 1

293 – Roman Emperors Diocletian and Maximian appoint Constantius Chlorus (later Constantine the 1st) and Galerius as Caesars. This is considered the beginning of the Tetrarchy, known as the Quattuor Principes Mundi  -Four Rulers of the World.

1633 – Samuel de Champlain reclaims his role as commander of New France, which covered most of central and northeastern North America, on behalf of Cardinal Richelieu.

1692 – Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Tituba are brought before local magistrates in Salem Village, Massachusetts, beginning the Salem witch trials.

1781 – The Articles of Confederation goes into effect forming the first national government of the United States.

1790 – The first United States census is authorized.

1805 – Justice Samuel Chase is acquitted at the end of his impeachment trial by the U.S. Senate.

1836 – A convention of delegates from 57 Texas communities convenes in Washington on the Brazos, Texas, to deliberate independence from Mexico.

1845 – President John Tyler signs a Joint Resolution of Congress authorizing the United States to annex the Republic of Texas which occurred at the end of the year.

1867 – Nebraska is admitted as the 37th U.S. state.

1872 – President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act into law creating Yellowstone as the first ‘national park’.

1893 – Electrical engineer Nikola Tesla gives the first public demonstration of radio in St. Louis.

1896 – Henri Becquerel discovers radioactive decay.

1910 – The deadliest avalanche in United States history buries a Great Northern Railway train in northeastern King County, Washington, killing 96 people.

1912 – U.S. Army Captain Albert Berry performs the first static line type parachute jump from an airplane. No information is known about whether he knew the difference between a PLF and a PFL.

1917 – The Zimmermann Telegram is reprinted in newspapers across the United States after the U.S. government releases its unencrypted text.

1932 – Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr.,  the 20 month old son of aviators Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, is kidnapped from his home.

1947 – The International Monetary Fund begins financial operations.

1950 – German born, allied atomic bomb scientist, Klaus Fuchs is convicted of spying for the Soviet Union for disclosing top secret atomic bomb data.

1954 – The U.S. Castle Bravo test detonates a thermonuclear hydrogen device on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. An unforeseen nuclear reaction of the components results in a 15 megaton blast, 2 1/2 times the expected power, the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the U.S.

1954 – Armed Puerto Rican nationalists attack the United States Capitol building, wounding five Representatives.

1956 – The International Air Transport Association finalizes a draft of the Radiotelephony spelling alphabet for the International Civil Aviation Organization. NATO military allies quickly adopt the new phonetic alphabet.

1961–  President Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.

1966 – The Venera 3 Soviet space probe crashes on Venus becoming the first spacecraft to land on another planet’s surface.

1974 – A Federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. indicts several former aides of President Nixon, known as the “Watergate Seven” for conspiring to hinder the Watergate burglary investigation. The grand jury also secretly names Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator.

1991 – A popular insurgency against Saddam Hussein begins in Iraq but lacking international support, ultimately fails a month later.

1992 – Bosnia and Herzegovina declares its independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

2002 – In the Shahi-Kot Valley and Arma Mountains southeast of Zormat in eastern Afghanistan, U.S. forces begin an invasion –Operation Anaconda– to engage and destroy Taliban and Al Qaeda forces.

2003 – Management of the United States Customs Service and the United States Secret Service move to the United States Department of Homeland Security.

2005 – In the case of Roper v. Simmons, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that the execution of juveniles found guilty of murder is unconstitutional.

2007 – Tornadoes break out across the southern United States, killing at least 20 people, including 8 at Enterprise Alabama High School.

 

HYPOCRISY UNLIMITED: Hollywood’s Secret Counterfeit Vaccine Network.

Last week, I had a remarkable phone call with a person—I’m equivocating to protect their identity, although I assure you that person was either male or female, not in the least transgendered—from my former home in the Los Angeles area, regarding Hollywood and COVID-19 or, as it’s known hereabouts, the CCP virus.

Ironically, this was exactly one week before the deadline for Oscar voting. Although no longer working in the industry, I’ve been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since the mid-’80s, but never have I received so many emails, texts, and phone calls reminding me to vote.

This tells me that other members may be as bored with the process as I am. Who wants to vote in the event, let alone watch it?

Besides being reactionary in its obsession with race and sexual identity, “woke” Hollywood just isn’t fun (or entertaining) anymore.

Even less fun for all of us was COVID-19, but for Hollywood, it was especially inconvenient because of the stringent California laws that the studios took to with alacrity. You had no career without mRNA certification. You were supposed to be vaccinated just to get on the studio lot.

The phone call I mentioned above was with a person who works in the entertainment industry and said they obtained—through connections—vaccination record cards for use by major Hollywood celebrities and others.

These aren’t counterfeits, but actual cards purloined from a hospital pharmacy where the vaccines were sold and included batch numbers but without names attached. In essence, they were contraband.

The person claims to have been inspired to do something for people in the face of forced vaccination after news emerged that the virus might have been the result of a lab leak in Wuhan, China, and that the government had been lying about the pandemic in general.

My interlocutor says they began selling the cards in early April 2021. Between then and early October 2021, calls were apparently coming in every day for contraband cards.

The individual estimates that they sold at least 250 of the cards during that period. When asked whether they were afraid of the Justice Department and IRS because of this, the answer was affirmative.

The celebrities for whom this person made these counterfeits were almost uniformly liberals or progressives, at least publicly. In other words, if you asked them, they supported mandates, masks, and so forth, sometimes adamantly. Behind the scenes was another matter.

The stories this person told me were amusing, nauseating, and, in some sense, edifying all at once. We’ve long known that Hollywood types are some of the most hypocritical people on the planet—living large while endlessly lecturing the little folk on climate and the rest—but this may take the proverbial cake.

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MARINES DITCH FAMOUS SCOUT SNIPER PROGRAM

The Marine Corps is dismantling its iconic Scout Sniper platoons – a facet of each infantry battalion for generations – and is doing away with the coveted 0317 Military Occupational Specialty.

The product of a grueling training pipeline that yields field-ready precision marksmen qualified on the M40, M110, and M107 series rifles, the Marine Scout Sniper program is facing permanent disbandment as a result of a shifting focus in the country’s amphibious warfare service.

A leaked Feb. 21 unclassified message from Lt. Gen. D. J. Furness, the deputy commandant for plans, policies, and operations, detailed that the current 18-member Scout Sniper Platoons assigned to the Corps’ infantry battalions will quickly transition to 26-member Scout platoons – in other words, cutting the snipers in favor of a unit that would provide more “continuous all-weather information gathering.”

Spots in the Scout Sniper Basic Course will be zeroed out in the coming fiscal year while a nascent sniper capability will be continued in the Corps’ Reconnaissance and Marine Special Operations units under a new Military Occupational Specialty – 0322 MOS (Reconnaissance Sniper) – via a revamped, shorter training program.

The problem with that is, as these groups typically operate detached from standard infantry units, the highly specialized skill will in effect vanish at the battalion level, which will be left to get by with the current designated marksmen already at the company level. Under current doctrine, DMs typically only have a three-week course under their belt and train to engage targets out to 500 meters, rather than the much longer ranges that Scout Snipers train to achieve.

The USMC Scout Sniper Association is urging the Commandant of the Marine Corps to reconsider what the group terms an “ill-advised” policy decision that will gut the program that has been tweaked and perfected over the past 80 years.

“This announcement by the Deputy Commandant, Plans, Policy, and Operations on Tuesday is the result of misguided assumptions and decades of neglect of the community of men who are Scout Snipers,” said the Association.

“It’s unlikely that any officer who commanded and employed Scout Snipers in combat agrees that removing a sniper capability from the infantry battalion makes sense. Replacing an 18-man Scout Sniper Platoon with a 26-man Scout Platoon will not solve the ‘all weather information gathering’ problem. Retaining the skill set and the combat capability of Scout Snipers by offering a viable career path to Scout Snipers and providing them with more engaged leadership might.”

The shift away from having dedicated sniper platoons in each infantry battalion comes as the number of battalions themselves is dwindling.

The Corps’ three active-duty divisions would field a total of 27 infantry battalions between them if they were at full strength, but that hasn’t been the case for a long time. Long reduced to just 24 battalions all told, in 2020 the current commandant unveiled a plan to case the colors of three additional infantry battalions and the 8th Marine Regiment to make room to form a new Marine Littoral Regiment, the latter optimized to leapfrog rapidly across islands and coastal spaces with a smaller footprint when compared to the current force.

The result is a Corps with just 21 active-duty infantry battalions, shortly, in addition to cuts in tiltrotor, attack, and heavy-lift aviation squadrons and disbanding of all of the branch’s tank battalions.

NEW: SIG SAUER MCX SPEAR CONSUMER VARIANT OF THE ARMY’S XM7 RIFLE

SIG Sauer this week officially introduced the version of the military’s new Next Generation rifle that won’t require talking to a recruiter.

Last April, the New Hampshire-based firearms giant made headlines around the globe by pulling down the award for the Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapons, a series of 6.8mm rifles and light machine guns and their companion suppressors that are planned to replace the current 5.56 NATO small arms in front line service. The rifle, originally introduced as the XM5 and recently renamed the XM7, is based on the company’s gas-piston action MCX platform and uses SIG’s in-house developed SLX suppressor system.

While the as-issued XM7 currently being sent to the Army runs a standard 15.3-inch barrel (as measured over its muzzle device) and SIG released to the public a limited run of suppressed 13-inch barreled commemoratives last year that required two tax stamps, the MCX Spear will be fully NFA-compliant in at least most of its variants.

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Shootout during alleged attempted burglary in central Bakersfield, 2 injured

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KBAK/KBFX) — Two men are in the hospital after a shoot-out, police say happened during an attempted burglary in central Bakersfield Thursday night.

According to Bakersfield police, on Thursday, February 23, 2023, at around 7:04 p.m., officers were called to a home in the 2300 block Pine Street regarding reports of a shooting.

When officers arrived, they found a man suffering from a gunshot injury.

Police said the investigation found that the man arrived home and saw an unknown vehicle parked in his driveway and several unknown men running out from his home towards the parked vehicle.

One of the men had a gun and began firing at the victim while he was inside his car, according to police. The victim, a licensed concealed carry permit holder possessing a gun, returned fire. Police said during the exchange of gunfire, the victim sustained a non-life-threatening injury.

The suspects were able to drive away in the suspect vehicle.

Bakersfield Police Department detectives responded to the scene and assumed the investigation.

Police said 43-year-old Melvin Carter of Palmdale, was identified as one of the suspects after arriving at a hospital with a gunshot injury sustained during the shoot-out with the victim. Carter is in serious but stable condition.

Police said pursuant to the investigation, 36-year-old Frederick Minnoy III of Bakersfield was taken into custody for his role in the attempted burglary and shooting. Minnoy was transported and booked into the Kern County Jail for attempted murder, conspiracy, and attempted residential burglary.

The Hard “Nope”

It was a post at Bookroom Room that led me to jump aboard this particular train of thought – that most of us have certain concepts embedded in us so firmly that absolutely nothing will ever get us to violate them. As Bookworm put it, “Because as I’ve contended for years, every person has one absolute truth. It’s the one thing they know to their bones is true and the world must align with that truth … For my mother, who would have been a fashionista if she’d had the money, style and beauty were her truths. She sucked up all the lies about Barack and Michelle Obama until the media talking heads said that Michelle was the most beautiful, stylish first lady ever, above and beyond even Jackie Kennedy. That ran headlong into Mom’s truth and, after that, she never again believed what the media had to say about the Obamas.”

It’s a concept worth considering – our own truths, which we will stubbornly hold on to, refusing any threats or blandishments. It varies from person to person, of course. Some have only small and irrelevant truths, which are never seriously threatened, and there are those who have no real truths at all, save perhaps self-aggrandizement – but even so, for some keeping to their truth is a hard struggle, deciding to hold to that truth against everything – especially if they have status or a living to make, in denying that truth.

Sam Houston, as governor of Texas on the eve of the Civil War, refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy, required by a newly-passed law upon secession from the United States. Twice elected president of an independent Texas, and the general who had secured freedom from the Centralist dictator, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna nearly fifteen years before, Houston had labored mightily to secure annexation of Texas to the US. Secession from the Union must have nearly broken the old man’s heart. Most accounts have it that he paced the floor of his office for an entire night, considering whether he would take the oath … or not. He did not; he resigned all office and retired to his home in Huntsville, where he died several years later. When all was said and done, Houston was a believer in the Union, and devoted to Texas. When it came to secession and swearing an oath of fealty to the Confederates – a hard “nope” for the hero of San Jacinto.

My own personal biggest hard “nope” has to do with so-called anthropogenic global warming/global cooling/climate change concept alleged to be caused by human activity and industry. I don’t care how much the autistic Swedish teenager scowls at us all, or Al Gore flies from his many lavish mansions, to one important conference after another, to lecture us all about our carbon footprint.

Earth’s temperatures and conditions have swung wildly over millennia, without any help from human beings at all. Canada and the north-central US were once covered by a mile of ice. The Sahara desert was once a grassland interspersed with marshes, rivers and lakes. In Roman times, it was temperate enough in England to grow wine grapes, while around 1000 AD it was warm enough for subsistence farming in Greenland … and then the climate turned colder all across Europe, until the River Thames froze solid enough between the 14th and 18th centuries to host so-called Frost Fairs on the solid ice. Avenues of shops opened on the ice, racing events, puppet shows and all manner of entertainments took place. The massive explosion of an Indonesian volcano in early 1815, on the other hand, led to a so-called year without summer in the northern hemisphere in 1816. The climate of earth has changed drastically, without any human input over conditions – even before humans existed, so what the heck have gas stoves or gasoline engines – or even coal-fired power plants have to do with it?

I’ve got another couple of hard “nopes” – but anthropogenic climate change is just the main one at present. What are some other personal hard “nopes” among you all? Discuss as you wish.