The road from civilian disarmament to tyranny is short.

That was yesterday:

This is today:

Clerk shoots, kills person trying to rob 7-Eleven in Norfolk

NORFOLK, Va. — A man was shot and killed Sunday night after he tried to rob a 7-Eleven store, the Norfolk Police Department said.

Around midnight, police responded to the store at 1713 Colley Avenue after a gunshot victim was reported. Officers found Javier Garcia, 28, suffering from a life-threatening gunshot wound. Investigators think a clerk shot Garcia while he was trying to rob the store.

Police haven’t shared the clerk’s name.

Garcia was taken to a hospital where he later died from his injuries.

The police department said detectives are continuing to investigate the incident.

‘Stupid is as Stupid does’

Scoop: Investigation finds fired Tennessee vaccine official mailed dog muzzle to self.

A Tennessee investigation found evidence that the state’s fired vaccine chief, Michelle Fiscus, purchased a dog muzzle that she previously claimed someone had mailed in an attempt to intimidate her.

Why it matters: Fiscus, who denied sending herself the muzzle in a Monday tweet, has characterized her firing as a political move driven by Republican state officials after she shared a memo citing state law about whether adolescents can seek medical care, including a COVID vaccine, without their parents’ permission.

  • Fiscus and her husband, Brad, had said in multiple interviews, including with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, that the muzzle was sent anonymously to her state office through Amazon shortly before her firing.
  • “Someone wanted to send a message to tell her to stop talking, they thought it would be a threat to her,” Brad Fiscus told the Tennessean.

Details: The Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security found through a subpoena that the Amazon package containing the muzzle traced back to a credit card in Fiscus’ name, according to an investigation report obtained by Axios.

  • When asked by investigators, Fiscus provided information for an Amazon account in her name. It was a different account than the one used to purchase the muzzle.
  • The investigation concluded that “the results of this investigation that purchases from both Amazon accounts were charged to the same American Express credit card in the name of Dr. Michelle D. Fiscus.”
  • Fiscus told investigators she felt the muzzle was a threat and she should “stop talking about vaccinating people.” The investigation was launched after health department official Paul Peterson alerted the Department of Safety about the apparent threat to Fiscus.

The backdrop: Fiscus was fired amid criticism from Republican lawmakers who were upset about the health department’s efforts to convince teenagers to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

  • Republican lawmakers criticized Fiscus on multiple fronts, highlighting a memo she sent explaining how providers in Tennessee could vaccinate some teenage patients without a parent’s approval.
  • The health department released a memo last month stating Fiscus was fired for poor interpersonal communication skills, ineffective management and attempting to steer state money to a nonprofit she founded.
  • Fiscus denied the allegations in the memo and shared years of sterling performance evaluations. She claims she was fired for attempting to do her job well.

What they’re saying: In a statement distributed by her husband, Fiscus said she was not aware of the report until Axios shared it.

  • “We have now learned that a second Amazon account had been established under my name using what appears to be a temporary phone, possibly in Washington state,” Fiscus said.
  • “I have asked Homeland Security for the unredacted report so that I can investigate further and am awaiting their response,” she added.
  • Fiscus did not discuss the use of the American Express card in her name.

Detroit Firearm Instructors Launch FREE Firearm Training For Women – FREE Registration Required – August 21 – 22

Detroit Firearm Instructors Launch FREE Firearm Training For Women – FREE Registration Required – August 21 – 22

 

Metro Detroit Women Desiring FREE pistol training, can now sign up for a free range safety briefing and a free shooting lesson.
The free event takes place at local Detroit-area gun ranges in Taylor.
Everything is provided for the students: Free gun rental, Free ammo, Free safety equipment, Free range briefing, and free shooting lesson.
Rick Ector is a National Rifle Association (NRA) credentialed Firearms Trainer, who provides Michigan CPL/CCW Class training in metro-Detroit for students at his firearms school – Rick’s Firearm Academy of Detroit.

Those are M24 sniper rifles, M4 carbines and a M2 machinegun in the first picture and loads of M240 and M249 machineguns (some still new-in-the-box) in the second.

 

Report: Taliban Seizing Personal Weapons Because Afghans ‘Can Now Feel Safe’

Taliban jihadists reportedly began seizing personal weapons from Afghans in Kabul on Sunday, claiming civilians “can now feel safe” and no longer need the firearms because the terrorists had taken over the country.

Taliban officials declared victory and the restoration of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan after occupying the presidential palace in Kabul on Sunday.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar appeared in a Twitter video alongside other Taliban leaders, in which he pronounced victory in the battle for Afghanistan.

“We have achieved an unexpected victory. Now is the time to test, to show how we serve our people and ensure their future in the best possible way,” he reportedly said.

The Guardian reports that Baradar is the Taliban’s “political chief and it’s most public face.” He was released from “a Pakistani jail on the request of the U.S. less than three years ago.”

Within hours of Barader’s announcement, Reuters reported, citing a Taliban official, that the group had begun confiscating weapons in the capital. The outlet quoted him as saying, “We understand people kept weapons for personal safety. They can now feel safe. We are not here to harm innocent civilians.”

They noted MOBY Group media company’s Saad Mohseni, a Kabul resident, tweeted that “Taliban soldiers had come to his company compound to enquire [sic] about the weapons kept by his security team.”

The Moby Group is a news and entertainment provider operating in Africa, the Middle East, and South and Central Asia. Moby serves “over 300 million people through its activities in broadcasting, digital and online, production, strategic communications, publishing, music, sports, and research.”

A tweet from TOLONews told the same story:

‘Fudd for Chipman’ Democrat Ploy to Manipulate Low-Information Gun Owners

“Guest view: David Chipman can unite us on Second Amendment issues,” an August 5 testimonial appearing in, among other outlets, the Montana Standard, declares. The author is Dave Stalling, a self-described “past president of the Montana Wildlife Federation, … gun owner, former Force Recon Marine and avid hunter who lives in Missoula.”

The only surprise is that such a piece hasn’t appeared earlier. Gun owners have long been subjected to sudden appearances of Democrat citizen disarmament enablers trying to pass themselves off as fellow “tribe” members when there is a political goal to be attained. In the last presidential election, two groups tried to make their mark, “Sportsmen and Sportswomen for Biden — a coalition of more than 50 prominent hunters and anglers from across the country, who have come together to endorse Joe Biden for President of the United States,” and the Giffords’-bankrolled Gun Owners for Safety.

Yeah, they’re Fudds for Biden. If you’re inclined to take offense at that word, hold on a second: It’s not a pejorative for all hunters and sport shooters – just the ones who throw their fellow gun owners under the bus and support citizen disarmament edicts that don’t impact their hobbies. But a Fudd is what Stalling proves himself to be, particularly when he accuses Donald Trump Jr. of lying when he says Montana Sen. Jon Tester is not “staunchly pro-Second Amendment.” He’s not.

Tester’s a prime example of a self-serving opportunist who recognized that he had to vote “pro-gun” in order to be elected in that state, and was allowed to get away with it by Democrat Party leadership because it served their purposes to have him advance the rest of the agenda. Revealingly, Tester showed his true nature when he voted to keep Post Offices “gun-free zones.” The last straw for NRA was Tester’s Supreme Court confirmation votes (for Kagan and Sotomayor, against Gorsuch and Kavanaugh) when they downgraded his one-time “A” to a “D.”

“As a gun owner, former ATF special agent, and internationally recognized gun safety expert, David Chipman is hardly ‘anti-Second Amendment,’” Stalling continues. “As a Montana citizen, gun owner, former Force Recon Marine, and hunter, I fully support Chipman’s nomination, and urge my fellow Montanans to do the same.”

“Hardly”? And “recognized” by who? As for being a gun owner, so is Dianne Feinstein – who was reported to have a concealed carry permit that you or I couldn’t get to save our lives –literally. What does that prove? With all the evidence of his personal penchant for infringements that’s been amassed to the contrary (just enter the search term “Chipman” in the AmmoLand search bar), you wonder what more the guy has to do.

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Fauci: ‘Put Aside All of These Issues of Concern About Liberties’

White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci said Sunday that unvaccinated Americans need to shift their focus from “concerns about personal liberty” to combat the “common enemy” of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“You have to get the overwhelming proportion of people vaccinated, but you also have to do mitigation, and that gets to the controversial issue of mask wearing, and the mandating of things. Mandating vaccines, for example, for teachers and … personnel in the school,” Fauci said during an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Fauci went on to say that, while vaccinated individuals have become infected with the coronavirus, the unvaccinated are the ones with more severe cases. He also took the stance that personal liberties should be put on the back burner in favor of mitigating the spread of the virus.

“It’s the unvaccinated that are doing that, so we have a lot of tasks,” Fauci said. “We’ve got to do mitigation. Put aside all of these issues of concern about liberties and personal liberties and realize we have a common enemy and that common enemy is the virus. And we really have to go together to get on top of this. Otherwise, we’re going to continue to suffer as we’re seeing right now.

Afghanistan and the Cost of Having a ‘Normal’ President.

Consider this a letter of congratulations. I address it to Democrats everywhere who told us that Joe Biden would return the United States to a state of normality.

I address it also to those, many putative Republicans as well as Democrats, who fought tooth-and-nail against Donald Trump because—well, because he was not a “normal” politician.

Donald Trump issued mean tweets. He made fun of the media, often singling out reporters by name.

He was bombastic (more bombastic than President Joe Biden?).

He lied (again, did he lie more often than Biden?).

No thoughtful person believed there was anything to the fabricated gossip about Russian collusion in determining the 2016 election—which does not, of course, mean that that tissue of grotesque lies was not believed and assiduously circulated by many Big Names in the media.

Nor did it insulate Trump from being compared to virtually every tyrant in history (“literally Hitler,” remember?).

There is now a lot of hand-wringing about the performance of Joe Biden. I’ll give you a little then vs. now in a moment.

First, I want to raise the question of whether the people who helped put Joe Biden in office should have their hand-wringing licenses suspended.

There are several putatively conservative outlets—those that deserve Bill Kristol’s “elevated conservative” seal of approval—who worked overtime to disparage Trump.

They bought wholesale into the Jan.-6-riot-is-an-insurrection-threatening-“our-democracy” meme.

That is all looking as rancid as the Russian collusion delusion, but I haven’t heard any apologies.

Instead, we are treated to high-minded (by which I do not mean “intelligent”) analysis of Biden’s faults, blunders, mistakes.

I do wonder whether such people, who helped put Biden in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue deserve to be heard on the question of his liabilities.

I offer that for future consideration: should those who helped put Biden in office now deserve a hearing when they are complaining about his performance?

I confess that I do not listen to them.

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Opinions from some people with a lot of military experience:

Remember 2010? While the Obama admin was in the process of pissing away the win in Iraq, and giving that place to the Iranians, predictably precipitating the rise both Iran and ISIS, Biden was given the job of deciding what to do with Afghanistan.

Afghanistan was the war the lefties liked. But only to beat up on Iraq. They said all the resources should go to Afghanistan.

But when Petraeus put forward a surge/anti-corruption reform plan for Afghanistan, Biden, directed to look at that, dithered for six months. Or maybe it was nine, I forget. Then he cut the request in half.

Trump had the Taliban at the table. Biden dropped the ball on that.

Trump would not be leaving the people who helped us to be slaughtered by the Taliban.

It’s going to be a blood bath, and all that blood is on Biden’s hands. But whoever is actually running the Biden admin is shrugging about that. All they care about is it will make Biden look like shit.

Their lapdogs in the media will cast it as Bush and Trump’s fault, though. They’ll say Biden just inherited it. So they aren’t too worried about it

They’ll also wring hands and point fingers at their pals in the intelligence community, throw some blame that way.

Hey, in fairness, maybe if those guys hadn’t been so busy cooking up bs vs Trump the last four years …
There’ll be plenty of blame to go around. Go being the operative word.

Locals would have be crazy to cooperate with us in hostile zones, given our track record. That’s like marrying a wifebeater. Going on a carefree roadtrip with a serial killer.

It’s a debacle. But a sure sign that it won’t go well for Biden is that the military brass have already thrown him under the bus with “he didn’t take our advice” leaks.

Multiple things can be true at once:

The decision to stay in AfPak 20 years ago (as compared to punishing those who perpetrated 9/11) was a bad one. This is the first and hardest leason.

Having made it, the Powell Doctrine—“you break it you buy it”—only applies as long as there’s political will.

Afghans cannot be governed the same way as Western traditions hold as a model. Whatever way works isn’t that.

Pretending it can does not help. The mass delusion of everyone thinking it could, the “clap harder if you believe in fairies” model of wishcasting that has dominated the mission there, wasn’t as deadly as Ypres, but is just as dangerous.

The last twenty years show the US intelligence and military communities are led by no one you’d want there. The last year, especially.

Given the decision to stay, having attempted to help the Afghan peoples build a working government and army, at some point the Powell Doctrine expires. A decade was probably enough. I will stipulate “at some point” and leave it there.

So, then, two things can simultaneously be true in the above:

Americans are tired of forever wars, and

Americans assumed that the exit would look less like a complete hiding and defeat in detail, given the assurances to the contrary they heard from those in charge.

Ok, three: it IS a complete hiding and defeat in detail, with the news of mass murder and the usual Taliban slavery reinstated. Plus bonus gifts of an entire war machine given to seventh century mass murderers.

Then, on to the bonus round of things that are true:

There have not been US official casualties for over 17 months in theatre. That’s not to say operators didn’t eat it or that the Vietnamization repeat, echoes of 1971-75, didn’t play out horrifyingly fast. Not even four months, let alone four years. That there was, that it happened exactly that way, shows the mass failure of the USG and the Afghani power structure.

The Taliban didn’t even have to use a mass tank attack to make the Afghan “government” fall, a la Saigon. Does that mean the US should have kept propping up the wretched and corrupt Afghan government forever? I say “no”. Let’s say our lesson is: “insurgencies win when no one opposes them”, for now. What else we might learn from all this blood and treasure, I don’t know yet. But that, at least.

The Taliban’s new buddies are the ChiComs. Belt and Road. Whether they will fare better in the Graveyard of Empires than anyone else in the last 200 years is yet to be determined. But they sure are going to look to make a buck there.

As Africa, the West Pacific, and much of the ME show, the ChiComs don’t have to be world cops. World Ferengi works just fine for them. As HK, the Spratlys and Uighurs show, they don’t much care what anyone thinks or says.

The free people of Taiwan now know the US guarantees aren’t enough. Whether they remain free through the end of the year is yet to be seen.

And, most ominously for anyone who thinks the USG should do better, we know one very troubling thing: those who are willing to fight and die for our freedom will think at least one more time before they enlist.

Quote O’ The Day:

He should have spent more time fighting the taliban and less time fighting Tucker Carlson.

Milley moves up terror threat to US after Taliban’s gains in Afghanistan.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told senators on Sunday that he will move up the assessment of how soon terror groups like al-Qaeda could reform in Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban’s swift takeover of the war-torn nation, according to a report.

During a ​briefing for a bipartisan group of lawmakers, Gen. Mark Milley was asked by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) if he and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin would revise an assessment to Congress in June that there is a “medium” risk of terrorist organizations reconstituting in Afghanistan in less than two years.

​”Yes,” Milley replied, adding that he would be happy to brief the senators further in a classified setting, Axios reported, citing three sources on the phone call.

The US and its allies launched the war in Afghanistan in October 2001 because the Taliban provided al-Qaeda support and safe harbor while the terror group planned the 9/11 attacks.

The briefing by Milley, Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken came amid rapid developments in Afghanistan.

The US military used helicopters to ferry diplomats and staffers from the US Embassy in Kabul after the Taliban entered the capital city on Sunday, catching the Biden administration flat-footed with their dizzying advance.

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Richmond robbery victim pulls out gun, shoots assailants

RICHMOND, Va. — A man robbed in Richmond pulled out a gun and shot his assailants, Crime Insider sources told Jon Burkett.

One of the men died as a result of the shooting, the other was taken to the hospital.

The incident happened Friday afternoon along the 1100 block of Commerce Road in South Richmond.

The wounded men drove away after the shooting.

They were later found less than a mile away near East 18th Street and Fairfax Avenue.

Now, I will be the first to opine that education doesn’t necessarily equate to intelligence, or even ‘common sense’, but there is a lot to said by the fact that a lot of the highly educated, with access to a lot more information than most, is like this.

Most vaccine-hesitant group is those with PhDs, research shows.

Most skeptical and least likely to change their minds, findings reveal

A study conducted by Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh researchers found that vaccine hesitancy is highest among those with a PhD.

The online survey of more than 5 million adults was conducted between January 6 and May 31. People who said “probably not” or “definitely not” when asked if they would get the vaccine were considered vaccine hesitant.

“There was not a decrease in hesitancy among those with a professional degree or PhD,” the paper states.

A news release regarding the results explained further: “Hesitancy held constant in the most educated group (those with a Ph.D.); by May Ph.D.’s were the most hesitant group.”

The graph (below) provided in the survey charted the results. The line in yellow represents those with PhDs. It shows that their vaccine hesitancy rate rose slightly over the five-month survey period to end at the top of the chart.

“Most of the coverage would have you believe that the surge in cases is primarily down to less educated, ‘brainwashed’ Trump supporters who don’t want to take the vaccine,” Unherd reports. “This may be partially true: the areas in which the delta variant is surging coincide with the sections of red America in which vaccination rates are lowest.”

But “this does not paint the full picture,” Unherd noted:

People with a master’s degree had the least hesitancy, and the highest hesitancy was among those holding a Ph.D.

What’s more, the paper found that in the first five months of 2021, the largest decrease in hesitancy was among the least educated — those with a high school education or less. Meanwhile, hesitancy held constant in the most educated group; by May, those with Ph.Ds were the most hesitant group.

So not only are the most educated people most sceptical of taking the Covid vaccine, they are also the least likely the change their minds about it…

Read the paper here and the Unherd analysis here.

She’s probably thinking that this is going to score her some political points but it’s likely to blow up in her face.

Harris says she had key role in Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal decision
The vice president confirmed she was the last person in the room before Biden made the decision to move forward with withdrawing U.S. troops.

Vice President Kamala Harris confirmed Sunday that she was the last person in the room before President Joe Biden made the decision to pull all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan.

In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union,” Harris was asked about being the last person in the room regarding major decisions, something that Biden has said is important to him in his working relationship with the vice president. Harris confirmed that was the case regarding the move to pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by Sept. 11.

The decision to pull all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan was announced earlier this month. American troops have been in Afghanistan since October 2001, when the U.S. invaded in response to the 9/11 attacks the previous month.

“This is a president who has an extraordinary amount of courage,” she said, regarding the decision. “He is someone, who I have seen over and over again, make decisions based on what he truly believes … is the right thing to do.”

Harris said that Biden “is acutely aware that it may not be politically popular, or advantageous for him personally; it’s really something to see.”

“I have seen him over and over again make decisions based exactly on what he believes is right,” she noted.

The aircraft based there?
U.S. aircraft we provided to the Afghan air force.

B-52 bombers head to Afghanistan

American B-52H bombers are understood to be conducting an attack on the largest Afghan air force base in order to destroy the aircraft based there.

The aircraft are reportedly heading towards toward Mazar-e-Sharif.

The BBC report here that Taliban fighters recently captured Mazar-e-Sharif, the last major city in northern Afghanistan which was still under government control.

“The fall of the traditional anti-Taliban bastion marked a major gain for the militants, who have been advancing at speed as US-led forces withdraw.President Ashraf Ghani travelled to the city just days ago to rally troops. The Taliban are now in control of much of the country and are edging closer to the capital Kabul.

More than a quarter of a million people have been displaced by the violence, and many have headed to Kabul in hopes of finding safety. Women in areas captured by the Taliban have described being forced to wear burkas and the militants are also reported to have beaten and lashed people for breaking social rules.”

Countries are scrambling to evacuate their citizens, including the UK.

‘Lots’.

Massive New Analysis Confirms Just How Many COVID-19 Cases Are Truly Asymptomatic.

Within months of SARS-CoV-2‘s emergence as a global catastrophe it was becoming clear that many who spread the disease did so unwittingly, experiencing not so much as a tickle in their throat to alert them of the danger within.

Distinguishing those who are truly asymptomatic from those who are simply yet to show signs of the virus has made it hard to calculate a precise figure on the risks of succumbing to the illness.

Now an analysis by a group of US medical researchers on more than 350 studies has found just over 35 percent of all COVID-19 infections don’t proceed to a symptomatic phase.

Early estimates ranged from just 4 percent of infections being asymptomatic, all the way up to 81 percent. Even as the pandemic ensued, figures conservatively estimated fewer than 20 percent of people might be infectious without showing any signs.

Confidently nailing down a number is harder than it might seem. Without the fever, loss of smell, sore throat, aches, and cough to encourage a trip to a clinic, few people bother lining up for a test.

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