Two women are being forced to pay $40,000 in fines and facing up to 5 years in prison as a part of a plea deal for ‘transporting stolen property’ in the form of Ashley Biden’s diary that detailed sexual improprieties that the President was taking with his daughter. The plea deal is the culmination of a years long investigation into a crime that sounds like the title to a Hardy Boys book- “The Case of the Missing Diary.”
Contrast that with “The Case of the Purloined Letter.” Or have we all forgotten about Bob Woodward stealing documents right off of Donald Trump’s desk? In this case, it was the draft copy of a trade deal between the US and South Korea. Isn’t that interference with an official proceeding? Stealing government documents?
It’s painfully obvious that the FBI is the Sword and Shield of the Democrat party when a lost diary gets a 2 year investigation and a 5 year jail sentence, but stealing a treaty from the Oval office and in the process interfering with official government business gets you an advance for a tell all book.
The ATF needs two weeks to complete a gun trace. That, according to NBC, is just insanity. The ATF likes to blame this on the fact that they are not permitted to keep a registry of where all of the guns are. Any of us in the gun culture know that this is bullshit. How do we know?
The NFTR is a database of all NFA weapons: short barreled rifles and shotguns, machine guns, silencers, and AOWs. In short, a database that is supposed to be kept by the ATF of where every registered weapon in those categories is located. Dealers in those weapons are regularly inspected. ATF’s own inspectors reported to the Office of the Inspector General that 86 percent of the time, they find errors in the ATF database.
Of course, the point of the NBC article is that we must establish a nationwide firearm registry so we can make everyone safe. Did you know that last year, nearly 20,000 ghost guns were confiscated in criminal investigations around the country, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives? This sounds serious, right?
Except it’s misleading at best, outright bullshit at worst. ATF is including ALL weapons without serial numbers in its definition of “ghost gun” in order to make the problem sound worse than it is. Even so, the ATF traces half a million firearms every year. So the number of “ghost guns” being traced by ATF represents less than 4 percent of the total number of firearms being traced.
Ghost gun or not, this firearm is already illegal. It is a picture of what is either an SBR or an AOW. If you don’t know why I say that the ATF rules are arbitrary and stupid? Read this post.
Even when you DO comply with the law, the ATF will go to extraordinary lengths to put you away. There was a case where the ATF took a legal semiauto rifle, cut the welded FCG out of the rifle, and then replaced the entire FCG with a full auto FCG, which permitted the technician to fire it in full auto. They then prosecuted him for possession of an unregistered machine gun. The jury was not having it, and he was found not guilty. Imagine how much THAT cost in legal fees.
When I was teaching, every few years the school district had to select a new textbook. The process would include the district narrowing it down to a few likely candidates. The books which effectively covered your student benchmarks were listed, and parents would have an opportunity to look them over. So did teachers. The final textbooks were then selected with this feedback in mind.
After a book was chosen, there were of course dozens of books that were not chosen. No one ever accused the schools of censorship or book banning because they chose to have one book over another.
This is just a way for librarians to attempt to get grooming past parents who don’t want their children educated in how to be sexual deviants. This particular story even goes on to complain that complaints about CRT are actually just “amorphous conspiracy theories” that gained traction in conservative circles last year, before going on to blame these “book bans” on deep-pocketed rightwing donors who are carrying out a campaign to ban books from school libraries, often focused on works that address race, LGBTQ issues or marginalized communities.
You will note that none of the “banned books” these librarians are fighting for are things like the Bible, Rush Limbaugh’s “The Way Things Ought to Be,” or other books from the right.
Librarians are claiming that they are “banding together” to fight “book bans.” Look- the books aren’t being banned. The parents and others who pay the taxes that fund your library and your job have decided that they don’t want to use their money to fund their children reading stories with passages in them like this one:
What if I told you I touched another guy’s dick? What if I told you I sucked it? I was ten years old, but it’s true. I put Doug Goebbels’ dick in my mouth. I was in fourth grade, it was no big deal. He sucked mine too. And you know what, it wasn’t terrible.
Citation from “Lawn Boy”
You want to publish a book like that, fine. It isn’t illegal. This isn’t a First Amendment issue. No one is restricting your speech. The First Amendment prevents the government from restricting you from speaking your mind. What it doesn’t do is require that the government fund it.
When you are a librarian in a government funded facility, you are an agent of the government. While you are acting as an agent of the government, you are not acting in your individual capacity. This is why clerks of court can’t refuse to issue a marriage license. This is why a judge can’t have a sign with the 10 commandments mounted on the front of his desk in the court room. It’s also why teachers can’t explain gay sex to children and why librarians don’t get to push children to read “how to” books on sucking dick.
I will fight against using taxpayer funds to provide that book to children, you sick fucks.
Check this out. These agents will be going after landscapers, roofers, and others. Not billionaires. How do I know? Here is one job posting, and it is in the “Small Business Self Employed Office of Fraud Enforcement Field Operations” division. They carry guns, ammo, and “no Tasers:” dead or alive, you are coming with me:
I would also say that the way the agent is teaching how to apply handcuffs is not correct, according to how I was taught. You don’t “smack” the handcuffs on, because that is painful for the arrestee. Why be an asshole?
It looks like they are also looking for digital currency tax dodgers.
Interestingly, they refer to tax evasion as “stealing from the government.”
Ron Desantis pushed for a law to stop companies from doing the following:
Ban unlawful employment practices to include training requirements by companies that teach any of eight “forbidden concepts,” including:
that individuals should be discriminated against based on race, color, sex or national origin
members of one race, color, sex or national origin are morally superior to members of another race, color, sex or national origin
an individual, due to his or her race, color, sex or national origin, should be discriminated against due to actions committed in the past by other members of that race, color, sex or national origin
the idea that virtues such as merit, excellence, hard work, fairness, neutrality, objectivity and racial colorblindness are racist or sexist
a person is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive based on their race, color, sex or national origin
The law was intended to stop companies from teaching that white people are the cause of all of the problems in America, according to the left.
A Florida judge just struck down the law, saying that it is an unconstitutional violation of free speech. So now, according to this ruling, I can teach my employees that it is OK to discriminate against black people because they are morally and intellectually inferior to white people, and also because blacks are a race of criminals who are inherently racist because they are black? Of is this another law that will only be enforced against white conservatives?
The story goes like this: The Oversight Committee of the House of Representatives told the CEO of Smith and Wesson to appear before the committee so that other invitees who were the family members of people killed by criminal actors could pile on the hate and blame Smith and Wesson for the deaths. The CEO of Smith and Wesson wisely refused to attend.
The Chairman of the Oversight committee then said that Smith and Wesson would pay a price for their impertinence.
“The CEO of Smith & Wesson refused to testify before my Committee and face the families who’ve lost a loved one because of his company’s weapons of war. Highland Park, Parkland, San Bernardino, Aurora — these mass murders were all committed with Smith & Wesson assault weapons,” Maloney said. “As the world watches the families of Parkland victims relive their trauma through the shooter’s trial, it is unconscionable that Smith & Wesson is still refusing to take responsibility for selling the assault weapons used to massacre Americans.”
Make no mistake, this was no investigation. This was a politician wanting to use political power to punish someone while grandstanding in front of the press. Fuck him. I wouldn’t have gone either.
Even worse, they try use Kyle Rittenhouse’s use of force in self defense against the company.:
Kyle Rittenhouse also used a Smith & Wesson rifle to kill two people and injured a third during a 2020 protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rittenhouse was acquitted on all counts related to the shootings.
The committee has issued a subpoena to Smith & Wesson for documents related to its manufacturing and sale of AR-15- style firearms. My guess is that the FBI will be raiding Smith and Wesson soon.
My answer would be: GFY. I don’t think that I would answer this subpoena. There are still such things as Constitutional rights, I am not giving you information because you want to go on a fishing expedition. You got PC for a specific crime? Go for it. Until then, GFY.
This kind of grandstanding behavior in a court is the kind of shit that would make me lose it and tell a judge something that would get the book thrown at me.
“Your purpose was not to be a tourist walking through the Capitol, was it?” Howell asked during a plea hearing for Leonard Gruppo, who pleaded guilty to the petty offense of “parading” in the Capitol. Gruppo said he was not there as a tourist. Howell then refused to accept his plea until Gruppo admitted that he was in Washington on January 6 “as part of a demonstration in support of President Trump.”
How is this anything but a farce? We call this justice? “Make the plea and statements that I tell you to, or else?”
Start working on a good quote now.
“Give me liberty, or give me death?”
“Sic Semper Tyrannis.”
“I regret that I have but one life to give to fight tyranny.”
Something cool. I will have to work on it. You know, for a fictional story I am writing.
A comment on my recent Guardian post makes me want to clear up misconceptions of the training standards for Florida’s guardian program. For reference, here is the comment:
To be fair you have skipped over mentioning an important item. The contracted security MUST have each officer qualify through the Florida Guardian Training. 144+ hours, 132hrs is range, shoot house and school simulated scenarios. Thousands of rounds fired and strict qualifications all the way out to 25 yard timed shooting. The guardians are fully capable with firearms.
only 80 hours in firearms training, and not all of that is range time.
12 hours in legal issues (counts as part of the firearms training)
The firearms training breaks down like this:
8 hours of simulator training (think shoot/no shoot training)
8 hours of scenario training (not range time)
8 hours of defensive tactics (also not range time)
12 hours of training in legal issues (not range time)
16 hours of instruction in precision pistol (not all range time, some is classroom)
By law, guardians must fire at least 90 percent, but no more than 120 percent, of the rounds fired by police candidates at the police academy. How many rounds is that? Well, it varies. The standards are set by the state, but the specifics are set by each school. The only school that I could find that listed the number of rounds fired mandates 400 rounds of pistol and 50 rounds of shotgun. So call it a total of 500 rounds fired. That would mean Guardians would need to fire from 450 to 600 rounds during this course. Certainly not “thousands of rounds fired.”
It also says that they must score an 85 percent on the qualifier. What does that entail? Well that is available online.
At one to three yards, from the holster: Draw and fire two rounds into the target in 4 seconds. Repeat once for a total of 4 rounds.
At three yards, from high ready: Fire 2 rounds into the target in 1 second. Repeat twice for a total of 6 rounds.
At seven yards, from the holster: Draw and fire 2 rounds in four seconds. Then from high ready, 2 rounds in 4 seconds, then 2 more rounds in 4 seconds. Total of 6 rounds.
At seven yards, from the holster: Draw and fire 3 rounds in five seconds. Repeat once for a total of 6 rounds.
At 7 yards, from the holster: Draw and fire 12 rounds in 45 seconds, with a mandatory reload.
At 15 yards, from the holster: Draw and fire 6 rounds in 30 seconds.
Scoring: Any hit on the silhouette of a B-21 target is scored as a hit. Guardians must score 34 hits out of 48 rounds in a total of 1:53 with a single mandatory reload.
If you know anything about shooting, you would know that 2.1 rounds per second with a “hit” on a target 2 times as wide and 2 times as tall as an IDPA hit zone isn’t especially hard.
Compare this to an IDPA classifier course of fire. (pdf warning) An IDPA classifier requires 4 reloads instead of the one required by guardians. It also requires that the shooter hit a smaller target, including head shots. Still, let’s compare.
If we were to shoot an IDPA qualifier at that rate of fire with an 85% hit rate, we would score somewhere around a 200. That is barely marksman territory for a shooter with a Stock Service Pistol, and that is giving them some, considering the large size of the target area that qualifies as a “hit.”
So, no. The Guardian training isn’t thousands of rounds, nor is it particularly demanding. I daresay that most of the readers of this blog could score well on that test with no additional training.
Val Demings is running for Congress against Marco Rubio. She is running this ad:
She is trying to run on her record as a cop, so she can syphon off some law and order supporters. Let’s talk about her record as a cop. She was the chief of Orlando’s police department from 2007 to 2011. Her husband Jerry Demings was Sheriff of Orange County, the county where Orlando is located. He is now the mayor.
While she was police chief, her department had constant problems with police officers committing violent acts against the people who live there. Like the time in 2008 when a cop pushed this woman down the stairs:
After pushing her down the stairs, he falsified her arrest report and lied about what had happened. Officer Trinidad lied in the arrest affidavit and stated that Jessica Asprilla spit on him and was intoxicated when she fell down the stairs. Ms. Asprilla was eventually arrested for Battery on a Law Enforcement Officer (a felony) and resisting an officer. Later, in a deposition, Officer Trinidad stated that she intentionally threw herself down the stairs. Because it was caught on film, the charges against the woman were dropped, and the department had to discipline the officer.
The woman wound up suing the department, but complained that she would frequently have cops follow her in plain clothes, sometimes telling her to “watch your back.” One of those instances was actually caught on film during a news interview. She won her lawsuit, but was only awarded $4700- the amount of her medical bills. The officer still works for the OPD.
The Internal Affairs unit declared that he should receive a 16 hour unpaid suspension, by way of having two vacation days taken away. Chief Demings decided that the punishment should be reduced to one vacation day. For felony battery and perjury.
Even worse, the Orlando Police Department was in possession of the video of Officer Trinidad’s actions and never turned it over to the State Attorney’s office so they could make a proper decision whether to charge Jessica Asprilla for the allegations made by Officer Trinidad. The chief herself lied and covered for the rogue cop’s actions.
Demings also once had her service handgun stolen from her police vehicle back in 2009, even though city policy prohibited storing firearms in unattended police vehicles. She disciplined herself by sending herself a strongly worded letter. Her excuse was that she had children visiting her and wanted to keep it secure. Apparently, a house with 2 high ranking cops in it can’t afford a gun safe or even a lock box. The story has since been washed from Orlando media archives.
There was also the case of Daniel Daley, the 84 year old World War 2 veteran with no criminal record who walked with a walker. He was thrown to the ground by an OPD officer so hard that his neck was broken. His offense? He was arguing with a cop who said that he was illegally parked. Witnesses said the man was not aggressive. He sued and won $880,000 for that attack.
“The punishments were so minimal and so light for so many years, probably preceding Val Demings, that officers basically had impunity to punish people and get away with it,” said one local attorney. I can believe it. Don’t forget that she was one of the leading candidates to be Biden’s running mate in 2020. Here is a great example of OPD’s culture:
