"The Wokists"

 Tal Bachman: We Have Met the Enemy

The strange figures known as Wokists currently destroying America aren't just reprises of earlier enemies. They represent something rather new. The political cult of Wokism combines the worst aspects of every political cult in history.

Whether they realize it or not, Wokists themselves combine the lunatic loyalty of the Manson family with the hollow pseudo-joy of Jonestown residents, the racism of National Socialists, the inhumanity of Mao Tse-Tung, the bratty tantrums of Veruca Salt, the nihilism of Bakunin-style anarchists, the totalitarianism of Stalin's Soviet Union, the child torture and sacrifice of the Mayans, the derangement of Heaven's Gate followers, the sadistic violence of the Jacobins, and the ruthless control-freakism of the current Chinese Communist Party.

Now add to that noxious syncretic blend the Wokist use of powerful communication technologies to shape narratives and meta-narratives, destroy opponents, and recruit new converts, and you've got yourself a thing.

Read All About It!

 This is all over MeWe and Gab already, but on the of chance you haven't sen it, Time Magazine just published what amounts to a SuperVillain Monologue that details how the presidential election of 2020 was rigged. 

Oh, wait. How the Presidential Election of 2020 was fortified to ensure that Democracy was saved! 

The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election

Interestingly, that's the way the title on the web page reads, but the tab calls it "The Secret Bipartisan Campaign..."

There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes, one that both curtailed the protests and coordinated the resistance from CEOs. Both surprises were the result of an informal alliance between left-wing activists and business titans. The pact was formalized in a terse, little-noticed joint statement of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO published on Election Day. Both sides would come to see it as a sort of implicit bargain–inspired by the summer’s massive, sometimes destructive racial-justice protests–in which the forces of labor came together with the forces of capital to keep the peace and oppose Trump’s assault on democracy.

The handshake between business and labor was just one component of a vast, cross-partisan campaign to protect the election–an extraordinary shadow effort dedicated not to winning the vote but to ensuring it would be free and fair, credible and uncorrupted. For more than a year, a loosely organized coalition of operatives scrambled to shore up America’s institutions as they came under simultaneous attack from a remorseless pandemic and an autocratically inclined President. Though much of this activity took place on the left, it was separate from the Biden campaign and crossed ideological lines, with crucial contributions by nonpartisan and conservative actors. The scenario the shadow campaigners were desperate to stop was not a Trump victory. It was an election so calamitous that no result could be discerned at all, a failure of the central act of democratic self-governance that has been a hallmark of America since its founding.

Their work touched every aspect of the election. They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding. They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time. They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears. They executed national public-awareness campaigns that helped Americans understand how the vote count would unfold over days or weeks, preventing Trump’s conspiracy theories and false claims of victory from getting more traction. After Election Day, they monitored every pressure point to ensure that Trump could not overturn the result. “The untold story of the election is the thousands of people of both parties who accomplished the triumph of American democracy at its very foundation,” says Norm Eisen, a prominent lawyer and former Obama Administration official who recruited Republicans and Democrats to the board of the Voter Protection Program.

But's was okay, because Trump did it first by saying mail-in ballots were insecure. 

LOL!

 Seen on Gab:

I'm on Gab as @DW_Drang, some imposter 😛 was already using "Drang".

Thought For The Day

“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.” 

Frank Herbert, Dune

I have been wondering if the Butlerian Jihad is going to begin earlier, and look different, than Herbert thought... 

A Boot, Stomping On A Human Face..

 So Twitter has initiated a purge against President Trump and anyone that doesn't want to see him die in  fire. 

Many of whom have jumped to the Twitter rival, Parler. 

Which is hosted on Amazon Web Services.

Which is shutting it down until Parler starts censoring speech in accordance with the wishes of the technocratic oligarchs. 

Who constitute a kakocracy.

So, fine, here we go to Gab. Which hosts it's own content. 

"Unity"

They're makin' a list, they're checkin' it twice...

 The Trump Accountability Project

 "We must never forget those who furthered the Trump agenda.

"We should welcome in our fellow Americans with whom we differ politically. 

"But those who took a paycheck from the Trump Administration should not profit from their efforts to tear our democracy apart. The world should never forget those who, when faced with a decision, chose to put their money, their time, and their reputations behind separating children from their families, encouraging racism and anti-Semitism, and negligently causing the unnecessary loss of life and economic devastation from our country's failed response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Coming together starts with acknowledging the truth: These individuals have shattered laws and norms that hurt our democracy, including right now, as they use the levers of government — DOJ, GSA and state officials — to subvert the fundamental underlying tenet that makes America what it is: The peaceful transfer of power from the loser of an election to the winner."

Because nothing says "progressive agenda" like an enemies list leading to a good Marxist purge.

A Review Which Should Not Be Necessary

I hear Ted Cruz has introduced a bill to impose term limits on congresscritters.

Must be the beard.

Meanwhile, the ignorance on display daily among voters (or non-voters, if they make that choice) is bad enough, but the media should know better, and anyone in government, whether hired, appointed, or elected...!

Anyway.

So Nancy Pelosi claims that according to the Constitution, she is the equal of the President.



Meanwhile, I keep being told it's the President's fault that a Democratic senator filibustered the budget bill the House sent there, or that the house has since failed to send a clean bill to the Senate, so that body can send it to the President...



While we're at it...

In other news...

Shift Washington - Shifting the Debate in Olympia says that, among other legislative action in Olympia, The bill to abolish the death penalty in WA "in order to save money" failed.  While there are many issues with the death penalty -- making sure you have the right person, chief among them -- I believe it's more expensive to keep someone locked up for the rest of their life than to put them out of their (and everyone else's) misery.

Jay Inslee's perennial efforts to impose carbon taxes in WA have failed again.

Speaking of Jay Inslee, HB 2519 - 2017-18 Concerning concealed pistol license eligibility requirements is headed to the Governor's desk for signature; basically, it says that if your CPL gets pulled for any reason, they can't give it back until they run a new background check; which is reasonable, as long as they don't go yanking CPLs for no reason. Also, if you're under 21 but serving in the military (active or reserves, of have an honorable discharge) you are eligible for a CPL in WA.

 Still speaking of His Dishonor the Governor, a bill has been introduced to the State Senate declaring April 1st "Jay Inslee Integrity Day."

SHIFT WA says they have proof that the Purple People Beaters of the SEIU are behind the latest campaign to force an income tax on Washingtonians. Do they care that the state constitution bans such a thing? No! Have they made any effort to amend the state constitution to allow it? No! They want an income tax, they want it now, and they don't want to be bothered by any silly considerations about legality or whether the rest of the state wants it.

Speaking of the purple People Beaters, the dems in Olympia are pushing a trip of bills designed to pay back labor unions for their support, and SHIFT WA reports that, when Republicans got up to raise the BS Flag their microphones were mysteriously cut off. (House Republicans’ mics cut off for pointing out union giveaway)

Jeeze, you'd think we were in a state run by Chicago "Community Organizers..."

GOAL Post 2018-8

I've skipped the last couple of GOAL Posts, they are linked in the right-hand sidebar. 

But I felt that this week's was important to post, if only for Joe's comments on the recent events in Florida.

As usual, minor editing for formatting, a couple of typos or elisions from the original are called out with "{sic}".

***

FROM: wa-ccw@yahoogroups.com (Joe Waldron)

TO: undisclosed recipients

SENT: Fri 2/23/2018 5:50 PM

SUBJECT: GOAL Post 2018-8

Legislative Update from Olympia23 February 2018

• BILLS MOVE
• NO PUBLIC HEARINGS NEXT WEEK
• CONFERENCE COMMITTEES
• TWO WEEKS LEFT IN SESSION
• FLORIDA SHOOTING

HB 2363 (drone delivery of contraband) passed out of Senate Law & Justice to Senate Rules awaiting a floor vote. HB 2519 (return of CPLs) also passed out of Senate Law & Justice to Rules, but not before they amended the bill to it’s original form, removing the language that allowed current and former military members aged 18-20 to apply for and receive a concealed pistol license (several states with age 21 CPL requirements have opened them up to military members over 18). ed {sic} on the House floor to reimburse those owners who surrender them to police. SB 5553 (suicidal, waiver of firearm rights) passed out of the House on a77-20 vote with one excused.SB 5992 (bump stock ban) passed out of the House on a 56-41 vote also. The bill was amended to create a buyback program for banned bump stocks. Seven other amendments to limit the impact of the bill failed.SB 6298 (DV harassment firearms ban) passed out of the House Judiciary committee with an important amendment. Back in 1994, when many DV-related misdemeanors were made firearm disqualifiers, it was retroactive – a listed DV-related conviction at any time in the past prohibited future possession of firearms.SB 6298 was amended to allow only DV harassment convictions after this law takes effect to act as a disqualifier.

Unfortunately, the amendment is still lipstick on a pig. No misdemeanor conviction of any law should allow denial of a fundamental, enumerated right listed in the Constitution. Period. Add to that the common he said, she said nature of many of these DV offenses, in many cases with no physical proof offered.(We’ve been over this before: domestic violence is a serious issue and must not be tolerated, but if it’s that serious, make it a felony.)

No public hearings involving firearms are scheduled for next week. It’s all floor action now.

If a bill is amended in the second chamber and passes, it must go back to the original chamber to approve the change. If approval (another floor vote) is not granted, it goes to a conference committee composed of members from both chambers to iron out the difference(s). Then it goes back to both chambers for approval.

At this point, and we’re pretty far along in the session, it appears there will be no immediate, direct impact of the Florida shooting in Olympia. For now.

If you’ve been following the national news all this past week, it appears the only thing in the world that has happened is the Parkland, Florida school shooting. The overwhelming media focus is on gun control, calling for bans on AR-15s and other “assault weapons,” raising the age to purchase ”assault weapons,” or in some cases, all firearms, to 21.Suggestions have also been made by some to arm SOME teachers (the establishment doesn’t like that, nor do teachers’ unions), or to provide for more school resource officers. The outcome remains to be seen.

A couple of things of note, though. The call for more gun control seems to be exceptionally-well organized. And funded. One Parkland survivor invited to attend a CNN episode on the shooting says he was denied the opportunity to ask the questions he wanted to ask, and instead was given a scripted question to ask. More and more information has come out about the shooter and the incident. He was a long term “problem kid,” with many fellow students reporting major issues with him including threats, he was expelled from Parkland, the Broward County Sheriff’s deputies had made more than three dozen calls to his home in the past few years. Clearly red flags were being waved – and ignored. Then the FBI dropped the ball after the “kid” posted a You Tube comment that he wanted to become a “professional school shooter” (a comment alleged made at other times and places, too).

The worst failure here was the fact that they just revealed that the on-scene School Resource Officer stayed outside under cover when the shooting started, and remained outside for at least four minutes. The major lesson learned in 1999 after the Columbine, CO, school shooting is that you don’t wait outside to see how things develop, you immediately enter. It’s called “running to the sound of gunfire” and has been “school shooter” Rule #1 since 1999.The news is reporting that the officer has resigned, but most fail to add that he was actually allowed to retire.

Just before I closed this out, another local police department whose officers responded to the Parkland H.S. shooting are reporting that when they arrived on scene, four additional Broward County deputies were also outside the school, guns drawn, but not going inside.

Former Milwaukee County Sheriff, NRA Director and staunch pro-gun advocate made the comment that George Soros fingerprints are all over this. I tend not to buy into conspiracy theories for a variety of reasons, but the number of coincidences in this one certainly raise questions. (And the media now says these conspiracy theories originated with the Russian{sic}. Maybe the shooter was a Russian immigrant?)

BILL STATUS/GOAL POSITION:

{After the jump. DWD}

A Moment of Zen

Sunrise, Miami Beach, 10/20/2017.

Background in the first comment.
Copyright 2017, D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter.

Still Siggy with it.

While I was at work today, Sig posted the details of the Voluntary P320 Upgrade. (See previous post, "Damnit, man, this is the Internet!")

Got home and submitted all of ours for the program; process took maybe 5 minutes, and that included getting pistols out of the safe, and a separate submission for each of them.

No further action is required from you at this time.

You will receive an email from SIG SAUER at a later date that will include a prepaid shipping label and instructions to return your P320 pistol and any P320 caliber exchange kits that you have. It may take many weeks for you to receive this next communication, but we won’t forget about you (SIG will not begin the upgrade process for a few weeks as we prepare to make this upgrade). Once your P320 is shipped and received at SIG SAUER, the turnaround time will be approximately 4 – 6 weeks. This lengthy process is due to the high volume of pistols in the marketplace. Transit times may vary depending on your geographic location and receipt of your returned pistol. In the meantime, your SIG SAUER pistol is safe to carry and use as originally configured from the factory.

 Obviously, the 4-6 weeks to get the pistols back after the undetermined wait to ship them off is less than appealing. (The most common number I've heard for P320 sales is ≈500,000. Not sure how accurate that is, but I can see how that would be a significant number of pistols to process...)

The fact that the entire process will be free of charge to us goes a ways to alleviating that.

FAQs about the program are at the bottom of the page linked above.

BTW, if you have caliber exchange kits in addition to one or more P320s, they recommend sending in the slides, as well, as

the striker(s) will be replaced, and the slide(s) will need the disconnector cut.

I'm honestly not too concerned about toting the P320 Sub Compact in the meantime, as I don't plan on dropping it multiple times in just the right orientation to cause an ND.

Don't really care whether the hysteria brigade thinks I'm overly optimistic or a fool.

"Damnit, man, this is the Internet!"

"Gentlemen, you can't reason here! This is the Internet!"

So, you may recall over several previous posts that I (and Ms. Drang, on my advice) have switched over the Sig P320s as out primary sidearms.

You may also be aware that the entire Gunternet is having a collective meltdown over recent "revelations" regarding the Sig P320.

The American Rifleman's The Keefe Report has published a review of the situation.

This post has few links; they'll be easy to find on your own. There is so much pants shitting hysteria over this issue that I am giving myself a time out from most gun-specific fora.

Many of my fellow bloggers, over in the right sidebar, have addressed this situation, as has The Gun Feed.. The issue has been beaten to death so thoroughly at Pistol-Forum.com that the horse is not only dead, but they had to bring in a new dead horse because the first one had been reduced to a pile of rancid jelly.

To review, for any who have not been following:

• A few weeks ago a video popped up in YouTube, on a channel with only that one video and no other content, purporting to demonstrating that, when dropped in a specific orientation, the Sip P320 would fire.
• The video had no commentary at all, including a description of how many tries it took to get this to happen, or how they reached the conclusion that dropping this pistol such that it struck the ground at a specific angle would cause it to fire.
• After a week or so, during which time people generally held to be In The Know arrived at the conclusion that the circumstances surrounding the video were so flaky as to render it suspect, at best; shortly thereafter, it disappeared.
• At approximately the same time, however, it was noted that there was language in the Sig P320 manual stating that the pistol could fire if dropped, and one should take care. 
• Note that this is standard lawyerese in most if not all firearms manuals, along with "use only quality, factory-loaded ammunition", and "modifications will void the warranty."
• Also at approximately the same time, the Dallas, TX, Police Department issued a safety warning regarding the Sig P320, due to the fact that "it might fire if dropped."  (The P320 is not issued by the department, but is authorized as a personal purchase.)
• Note that, contrary to rumors, no Dallas police officer has had a P320 fire accidentally.
• Sig released a statement which pointed out that the P320 had passed all industry standard safety testing, including all industry standard drop testing; IOW, no one ever thought they had to test a gun dropped at this specific angle before.
• Just as the furor over the original video and the verbiage in the manual was dying down, other videos popped up. These were better produced, and did seem to explain what happened better.
• Note, however, that these all built on the original video, which means that they started with the knowledge that the pistol dropped in this specific orientation could or would fire.
• Then... people started claiming that this previously unsuspected flaw applied to the M17 and M18 pistols, the Army having just awarded the contract for the Modular Handgun System to Sig for variants of the P320...
• ...despite the fact that the M17 and M18 use different internal components which avoid this issue...
• ...and which it turns out, Sig had already planned to offer as a voluntary upgrade to the P320. Details to be available the day after tomorrow. (That is, Monday, August 14th, 2017.)

 Of course, this latter fact gets reported to the effect of "What did Sig know and when did they know it?"

Notes for those who have been following along:

1. I left out the lawsuit by a Connecticut police officer who alleges he was injured when his P320 unintentionally discharged, which came to light about when this was happening, on purpose. Claim is made that his holstered pistol went off. The lead time on a lawsuit is such that the timing may or may not be suspicious, and the description of what happened is still unproven.
2. I am also not addressing the fact that one or more highly regarded personages came out and said that the P320 was as safe as any other gun, and questioned the original video, leading to their character and integrity being called into question when the full feeding frenzy hit.
3. Seriously, Gunternet-wide the knicker-twisting approached Bernie Sanders rally proportions...

Tamara's take (more or less) here: View From The Porch: Absolutely unprecedented!

Note that she is not commenting on the allegations or sequence of events, just that this is not the first time we've seen the "blood-in-the-water" effect of a new, successful pistol design which might have a weakness.

And as Mr. Keefe says in his article referenced above, this whole thing has gone beyond "blood in the water" into full-on Sharknado. (Naturally, the first comment on that article claims Sig bought the NRA's compliance...)

Mr. Keefe also references a report from Soldier Systems Daily: SIG SAUER Acknowledges P320 Trigger Issues With -30deg Drop, M17 MHS Unaffected, Announces Voluntary P320 Upgrade. 

Although SIG was already working toward introducing the MHS-inspired Enhanced Trigger to the P320, this -30deg drop issue has hastened their effort. They have lightened the Trigger, Striker and Sear by about 30% overall and added a Disconnect (commercial only, not MHS). The trigger pull weight is unaffected, but rather the trigger part actually weighs less. The reason they lightened those parts is to mitigate the momentum gained by the heavier parts during a drop.

Taylor laid it out, “There is a vulnerability with the P320 at the -30deg drop.” They plan to incorporate the trigger enhancements for the M17 into the P320. They’d been working on them, but implementation wasn’t imminent. Based on what they’ve found, that has been accelerated. Details on their voluntary upgrade program will follow soon.

I want to put this perspective. Since it’s introduction in 2014, they’ve sold around 500,000 P320s. There are three recorded cases of unintended discharges in LE channels . There is one additional commercial incident which I am familiar with but was not formally reported to SIG. That’s four known incidents from 500,000 weapons, many of which are used on a daily basis. Additionally, those incidents have all been within the last year.

This report concludes with the following paragraph:

My take is that despite building their pistols to industry standards, SIG has acknowledged the issue and is taking steps to fix it. They didn’t waste any time. They’ve stopped commercial production of the P320 and are concentrating on the upgrade. It’s going to be more than just swapping parts. The slide and frame will need some work as well so the pistol will need to go back to SIG. Details will soon follow on how to participate in the voluntary upgrade program.

 As I noted earlier, details of the upgrade will be available Monday.

Not gonna lie, I'm not too crazy about the idea of sending our guns to New Hampshire to be upgraded, but expect to be doing so, if only to ensure parts compatibility down the road.

This whole series of events has left me disgusted with a large swathe of humanity, though.

GOAL Post2017-Special-Final?

Missed this one. 

On the subject of Seattle agenda and Seattle taxes, the Constitution of the State of Washington specifically bans income taxes, including those levied by municipalities. 

They're going for it anyway.

They're mandating that landlords give tenants voter registration cards. No mention if ensuring that the tenants are eligible to vote. 

Plus, RUMINT has it that the progressive super-rich are putting together a ballot initiative of  "common sense gun laws" which will include a requirement to register all "assault weapons" including  "high capacity" magazines, with a surtax on each item registered.

***

FROM: GOAL WA goalwa@cox.net (Joe Waldron)

TO: Undisclosed recipients

SENT: Fri 7/21/2017 2:04 PM

SUBJECT: GOAL Post2017-Special-Final?

Legislative Update from Olympia21 July 2017

·        THIRD SPECIAL SESSION ENDS

·        NO ACTION ON GUNS

·        GRIDLOCK PREVAILS

·        SPECIAL ELECTION UNDERWAY

·        GOAL ENDORSEMENTS FOR SENATE

There was no action taken on gun issues throughout the three special sessions.

The third special session of the legislature came to a close last night without passing a capital construction budget. The governor says he will not call them back into session until they have resolution on a capital (state construction) budget.

What is at dispute is control of water in rural areas. A year-old state Supreme Court decision that allows counties to block well water drilling on private property, thus limiting development. Easy access to water is crucial for rural development. But the Seattle gang that controls Olympia wants rural to stay rural, so they can drive out on the weekend and see the pretty greenery.

Primary ballots have already been mailed for a handful of special elections to be held this fall. Control of the state Senate is at stake, and with it control of your wallets. If Democrats take just one (of

three) Republican senate seats up for grabs, Governor Inslee will have total Democrat control of the legislature next January, and this year’s failed tax proposals (state income tax, capital gains tax, etc.) will sail through next January.

Our focus in this special election is on the critical state senate seats, which will; determine who prevails in Olympia next legislative session. GOAL has endorsed the following candidates:

7^th Legislative District Senator Shelly Short (R)

31^st Legislative District Senator Phil Fortunato (R)

45^th Legislative District Jinyoung Englund (R)

The 45^th is probably the most competitive race and places both gun owners and taxpayers at greatest risk. If ever there was a time to get involved in politics, it is now. Make a donation (the cost of a box of bullets… or more; some of your time to volunteer – campaigns survive on volunteer support). Or you can sit back and kick taxes in to support whatever cockamamie programs Seattleites come up with next year to buy votes.

Hopefully this is the final GOAL Post for the year – for legislative matters, anyway.

BILL STATUS/GOAL POSITION: Nothing to report.

So, about that "off-duty police officer"...

You will no doubt have heard that a case of Sudden Jihad Syndrome was stopped by an off-duty police officer yesterday, in St. Cloud MN.

Turns out the "off-duty police officer" is a reserve policeman who owns an indoor range and gun shop, and shoots in USPSA and 3 Gun competitions. (Man Who Shot Crossroads Mall Terrorist Is USPSA Competitor, 3-Gun Shooter – Bearing Arms)

Here's the web site for his busienss: Tactical Advantage, LLC

So, you know, if you're in the Gopher State, look him up.

UPDATE: When Are Liberal Laws Good? When They Relate to Guns | Power Line points out that he is a reserve police officer who is not scheduled to work for at least two months.

Scary thoughts

Forwarded to me by a colleague.

The Terrifying JFK Airport Shooting That Wasn’t

When the first stampede began, my plane had just landed. It started, apparently, with a group of passengers awaiting departure in John F. Kennedy Airport Terminal 8 cheering Usain Bolt’s superhuman 100-meter dash. The applause sounded like gunfire, somehow, or to someone; really, it only takes one. According to some reports, one woman screamed that she saw a gun. The cascading effect was easier to figure: When people started running, a man I met later on the tarmac said, they plowed through the metal poles strung throughout the terminal to organize lines, and the metal clacking on the tile floors sounded like gunfire. Because the clacking was caused by the crowd, wherever you were and however far you’d run already, it was always right around you.

There was a second stampede, I heard some time later, in Terminal 4. I was caught up in two separate ones, genuine stampedes, both in Terminal 1. The first was in the long, narrow, low-ceilinged second-floor hallway approaching customs that was so stuffed with restless passengers that it felt like a cattle call, even before the fire alarm and the screaming and all the contradictory squeals that sent people running and yelling and barreling over each other — as well as the dropped luggage, passports, and crouched panicked women who just wanted to take shelter between their knees and hope for it, or “them,” to pass. The second was later, after security guards had just hustled hundreds of us off of the tarmac directly into passport control, when a woman in a hijab appeared at the top of a flight of stairs, yelling out for a family member, it seemed, who had been separated from her in the chaos. The crowd seemed to rise up, squealing, and rush for the two small sets of double doors.

Easy to taunt the "sheeple" who panic and bolt, but what if you're in the middle of a panicking crowd? Do you really think standing there like Kevin Bacon saying "Remain calm, all is well" is going to do you any good?

Point Of Order!

People keep saying that the San Bernardino terrorists' AR15s were purchased legally, and then illegally modified.

The modifications WERE illegal, but the ARs were pruchased as part of a starw sale:
San Bernardino shooter used friend to dodge gun check, may have planned larger attack, sources say - LA Times

...one of the shooters in last week’s massacre at a San Bernardino social services center, asked a friend to buy two rifles used in the attack so he could dodge a federal background check and also may have been planning an even larger assault, according to government sources familiar with the ever-widening investigation.

One of the sources said Thursday that {dirtbag who's name I will not repeat} wanted to make sure “the guns were not tied back to him” when he asked Enrique Marquez to make the purchases at a Southern California gun store in 2011 or 2012. {DwnIwnr} feared he “wouldn’t pass a background check” if he attempted to acquire the military-style rifles on his own, the source said.

Gee, illegal activity facilitated terrorism.Who'd'u thunk it?

Not that I expect this fact to penetrate the hate-filled, bigoted skulls of those engaged in the "Let's Ban Guns!" blooddance.

Excellant review of the Westgate Mall attack

‘Close Your Eyes and Pretend to Be Dead’ | Foreign Policy

Far from a dramatic three-day standoff, the assault on the Westgate Mall lasted only a few hours, almost all of it taking place before Kenyan security forces even entered the building. When they finally did, it was only to shoot at one another before going on an armed looting spree that resulted in the collapse of the rear of the building, destroyed with a rocket-propelled grenade. And there were only four gunmen, all of whom were buried in the rubble, along with much of the forensic evidence.

During the roughly three-and-a-half hours that the killers were loose in the mall, there was virtually no organized government response. But while Kenyan officials prevaricated, an unlikely coalition of licensed civilian gun owners and brave, resourceful individual police officers took it upon themselves to mount a rescue effort. Pieced together over 10 months from more than three dozen interviews with survivors, first responders, security officers, and investigators, the following account brings their story to life for the first time since the horrific terrorist attack occurred exactly two years ago.

An attack on a crowded shopping mall is a nightmare scenario everyone with a piece of the counter-terrorism role, or just an interest in it, has sweated over. It's easy to say it'll go better "here" than it did "there", but however it goes, it's not going to be pretty.

And I am reconsidering the easy way we dismiss so many of the techniques learned in classes like I wrote about in "Urban Defensive Tactics" class, 12/14/14 as being "inappropriate for non-LEOS or military."

Still highly unlikely we'll ever use them. And the conventional wisdom is that, in a case like that, even a trained, armed citizen should hunker down and defend self and other citizens, not go hunting the bad guys, if for no reason than to avoid being confused for a bad guy by the first responders, but...

And another scenario skills learned in classes like the one described in Shooter Self-Care Class @ NRA AM2015 (Update) would be invaluable.

Also, had not heard that al-Shabab had launched another attack in Kenya, in spring of this year, on a University, where they killed even more.

Inboxing

Some things that have been gathering electronic dust in my inbox...

Source: Instapundit.
Story: Global eavesdroppers: In World War II, dozens of radio operators in Scituate dialed into enemy conversations worldwide - News - providencejournal.com - Providence, RI
In case you ever wondered how a US Army unit that never left the Continental United States could win a Presidential Unit Citation for the battle of the Atlantic, this related story gives a clue, although only part of one. (I thought I'd posted this one before, but I guess not...)

Source: Dunno.
Story: Why Science Fiction Pioneer Hugo Gernsback Matters 131 Years Later | Inverse
Could be more fact-heavy, and the author is pretty clearly in the CHORF camp of the Sad Puppies controversy (if you don't understand, congratulations!), but, while I'm not sure Hugo Gernsback invented Science Fiction As We Know It, he sure laid the groundwork.

Bit of a change-up in this article from The Atlantic: How JSOC Became a Manhunting Machine, From Panama to Iraq - The Atlantic

Speaking of which, Insty pulls a few related pieces fom the archives: Instapundit » Blog Archive » AS WE FIGHT THE WAR ON TERROR DOMESTICALLY AGAIN, A FEW RELEVANT PIECES FROM OVER A DECADE AGO…

Sometimes coming back is pretty much the point:  A ‘monumental’ rescue: Coast Guardsman swims a mile in choppy seas to save four fishermen, one at a time - The Washington Post

A further change of pace: How to reclaim your privacy in Windows 10, piece by piece | PCWorld (Beware auto-play!)

About that... OPM Data Breach Edition

Insty has a link to an ABC report: Instapundit » Blog Archive » MASSIVE OPM HACK EVEN WORSE THAN THOUGHT: OPM Hack Far Deeper Than Publicly Acknowledged, Went Undetected For More Than A Year, Sources Say...

The massive hack into federal systems announced last week was far deeper and potentially more problematic than publicly acknowledged, with hackers believed to be from China moving through government databases undetected for more than a year, sources briefed on the matter told ABC News.

"If [only] they knew the full extent of it," one U.S. official said about those affected by the intrusion into the Office of Personnel Management's information systems.

It all started with an initial intrusion into OPM's systems more than a year ago, and after gaining that initial access the hackers were able to work their way through four different "segments" of OPM's systems, according to sources.

By some accounts, the data exposed goes back 20 or 30 years.

And may have been stored unencrypted.

It inspired this: Rick Wilson's rant on OPM breach (with tweets) · faceattack · Storify

Which came out BEFORE this: Daily Pundit: OPM Got Hacked Because It Handed Root to the People’s Republic of China Three Years Ago
Quoting Ars Technica:

A consultant who did some work with a company contracted by OPM to manage personnel records for a number of agencies told Ars that he found the Unix systems administrator for the project “was in Argentina and his co-worker was physically located in the [People’s Republic of China]. Both had direct access to every row of data in every database: they were root. (!!!) Another team that worked with these databases had at its head two team members with PRC passports. I know that because I challenged them personally and revoked their privileges. From my perspective, OPM compromised this information more than three years ago and my take on the current breach is ‘so what’s new?'”

(Emphasis added)

But good news! Now it will get traction: Instapundit » Blog Archive » A DEBACLE OF THE FIRST ORDER: OPM tells lawmakers their information was likely stolen….

Once is happenstance...

...Twice is coincidence: SayUncle » And speaking of the internet of things.

One need be neither a trained Intelligence Analyst nor a raving paranoid conspiracy theorist to wonder if there will be a third* gun blogger told to upload photo ID to continue accessing Facebook.


*The full quote is "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action."