Allowing the FBI to redact their own search warrant when the judge has told them to release it is insulting to both the Judicial and Legislative branches of government.  The branches of government are supposed to operate in a checks and balances paradigm, and obviously that isn’t happening.  Of course, if the judge in this case or Senators and Congressmen had any guts, they would hold the FBI officer who did this in contempt.

If they don’t know to whom to apply this contempt, start at the top and work their way down.  Go until you find the culprit.  As for the search warrant, I had held out hope that even if the CIA had a hand in the ugly, sordid, wicked affairs of The Clinton Foundation and other such international crimes, perhaps the FBI was a good balance to the power the CIA wielded.  I no longer hold out that hope.  The swamp goes too deep, is too dirty, and is too wide.  The swamp needs to be blown up.

Military.com:

Preliminary results of an Army test to see how the service’s M855A1 5.56mm round performs in Marine Corps weapons show that the enhanced performance round causes reliability and durability problems in the Marine M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle, service officials say.

The Marine Corps in March added the M27 and the M16A4 rifles to the Army’s ongoing testing of M855A1 Enhanced Performance Round at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland after lawmakers questioned why the Army and the Marines use two different types of 5.56mm ammunition.

“One of the reasons we were doing that test was because of congressional language from last year that said ‘you two services need to look at getting to a common round,’ so we heard Congress loud and clear last year,” Col. Michael Manning, program manager for the Marine Corps Infantry Weapon Systems, told Military.com in a Dec. 15 Interview.

Lawmakers again expressed concern this year in the final joint version of the Fiscal 2017 National Defense Appropriations Act, which includes a provision requiring the secretary of defense to submit a report to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees explaining why the two services are using different types of 5.56 mm ammunition.

[ … ]

The Army replaced the Cold War-era M855 5.56mm round in 2010 with its new M855A1 EPR, the result of more than a decade of work to develop a lead-free round.

The M855A1 features a steel penetrator on top of a solid copper slug, making it is more dependable than the current M855, Army officials have said. It delivers consistent performance at all distances and penetrates 3/8s-inch-thick steel at ranges approaching 400 meters, tripling the performance of the M855, Army officials maintain.

First of all, my former Marine Daniel laments the transition from the SAW to the IAR.  It’s all part of the softening of the USMC.  They should still be deploying the SAW.  But let’s assume that whatever problems they’re having with the IAR, they would have with the SAW too.

About this being a better round, I think the Army is lying.  That isn’t what I hear.

The Army M855A1 had a LOT of problems in development. Wearing down barrels, damaging the chambers, requiring new magazines because of the feed angle

Folks, they threw ballistics to the wind, didn’t consider what’s best for killing, and decided to go all green with their ammunition (this isn’t the only area they did this, witness the push for solar panels on military bases with the use of defense dollars).

And about this, commenter Fred tells it like it is.  “It’s green, why won’t you understand that? It’s green for everyone’s benefit especially the children. What is wrong with you people who can’t understanding destroying whole countries in a friendly, environmentally sound, and loving way is green?

Lets wreck this whole motherfuckin’ city and blow it up and kill millions of people but, let’s do it in an environmentally responsible way.”

Via Uncle, this.  It’s Bill 88, and it reads as follows.

TO AMEND SECTION 56-3-1230 OF THE 1976 CODE, RELATING TO LICENSE PLATE SPECIFICATIONS, TO REQUIRE THE DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES TO ISSUE A STICKER TO EACH CONCEALED WEAPONS PERMIT HOLDER WHO IS A VEHICLE OWNER THAT MUST BE AFFIXED TO THE VEHICLE OWNER’S LICENSE PLATE TO INDICATE THE VEHICLE OWNER IS A CONCEALED WEAPONS PERMIT HOLDER

Nice idea, dumb ass.  So thieves then know exactly where to go to steal guns.  And gun carriers are defined differently than everyone else, sort of like … Jews wearing six pointed stars.  Yes, that’s it.  That’s what I thought about when I read that text.

How about this instead.  This bill was proposed by State Senator Danny Verdin, who apparently is a republican.  Let’s have a new South Carolina tag that states that “Danny Verdin is a Nazi.”  I’m willing to bet that a lot of people would pay good money to get that specialty tag.  It would be a good source of revenue.

What is it about South Carolina these days?  First of all, we had to fight off Larry Martin, a republican, who opposed open carry and never let it get out of committee.  Now we have this piece of trash trying to lord it over gun carriers.

Why don’t conservatives act like conservatives and progressives act like progressives in South Carolina?  At least it would make it easier to identify the enemy.  And make no mistake about it.  Danny Verdin has declared himself an enemy of liberty.  Put a target on his back.  He is your next Larry Martin, folks.  Get rid of him.

David Codrea:

That works against liberty. I’ve met some fine Connecticut Bill of Rights defenders, including members of our Connecticut Oath Keepers chapter, and they’re as dedicated a group of patriots as any. The ones with their backs against the wall can be the most committed activists, devoting time, treasure and effort while fighting against overwhelming odds. These people have earned our admiration and gratitude for not giving up, and for showing those of us who don’t have it as bad as they do what it means to not give up. They deserve our encouragement and support.

Very well.  I vacillate between staying in and leaving states like New York and Connecticut.  Maryland is close, and if Virginia doesn’t get control of that communist governor, they might be looking down the barrel of similar conditions.

I hope my encouragement has meant something.  I’ve never failed to attack Chris Murphy when I had a chance, and Blumenthal is just as bad.  All of that said, at some point the fight may be over and it may be time to relocate.

Only the patriots in that position can make the decision as to when they’ve reached their limit.  Oh, and tell Blumenthal that I agree with him.  Trump should do something completely unexpected, like push for full repeal of the GCA and NFA.

George Webb is doing some very interesting work at YouTube connecting the dots concerning current events in North Africa, all within the context of Clinton Foundation machinations.

The links and contacts go very deep inside the U.S. government, extend outside the U.S. government to private armies, and can all be rolled up into one theme.  Follow the money, weapons and oil.

Everything that has happened has happened for a purpose.  Everything has been planned for a lot longer than you might imagine.

I do have two problems with his analysis.  First of all, I hate to use Seymour Hersh or anything he writes as a source for anything, but concerning the information he presents, the allegations are backed by independent journalistic reports on the ground (e.g., the rat lines of weapons and oil).  Second, he sees Benghazi as an accident, a curve ball in the plans of TCF.  Perhaps so, but I have always believed that the event was planned in its entirety by nefarious actors to accomplish exactly what happened.  I’d like to see George consider that in the context of his analysis.

It all makes sense, and without context like this, it’s rather like reading #Pizzagate code language (pizza, chicken, handkerchief, walnut sauce, etc.), code that no adult on the face of the planet uses in real life without trying to hide something.  If George is wrong about his analysis (and I’ll entertain disagreements), then you have to supply your own context that puts the pieces of the puzzle together in a way that makes some sense.

This is extended watching, and it will take you a little over an hour if you watch all of the videos I’m embedding.  But I suspect that these videos will be removed at some point, so instead of watching idiot television shows one night, watch these videos.

George tackles all of this by starting with the question, “Where is Eric Braverman,” who eventually tracked the money back to its sources and attempted to get out of said swamp.

News from Pickens County, S.C.

EASLEY, S.C. (AP) — Pickens County deputies say a man killed this week in an Easley house was a burglar who was caught by the homeowner stealing several guns.

Chief Deputy Creed Hashe said in a news release that the homeowner fought with 27-year-old Justin Smith and managed to get a rifle from him and fired several shots at the intruder.

Deputies say Smith tried to leave, but collapsed and died on a deck.

Hashe says evidence collected agrees with the homeowner’s story. Prosecutors are reviewing the investigation to see if the homeowner should be charged or can legally claim self-defense.

I have just two comments about this.  First of all, if a man is in your home, you have a right to treat him as a threat to your life.  You don’t know otherwise, and it’s foolish and dangerous to pretend you do or to wait for validation of that assumption.

Second, the homeowner interacted with the police.  As I’ve observed before, here are the steps.  (1) I shot in self defense, my life was being threatened, and (2) any further communication will have to occur with my lawyer.

Never talk to the police.

It wasn’t a negligent discharge.

But there’s more to it than meets the eye.  It wasn’t just an equipment malfunction.  According to the reddit/r/firearms discussion thread, this modification was done to the firearm.

1. He installed an aftermarket hammer and sear that were labeled “gunsmith installation only”.
2. He disabled the firing pin block safety on his firearm for a shorter reset.

So here are the moral(s) of the story.  First, the rules of gun safety are considered “defense in depth.”  Follow all of them, all of the time.

Second, if you cannot properly do sufficiently complex modifications to your firearms, then don’t do them at all and let a gunsmith tackle the job.  That’s their job.

Tom McHale has a very good article at Ammoland on AR-15 rifle barrel lengths and whether it matters.

Remember that you have two competing effects on muzzle velocity.  First, it’s advisable to get as much work out of expanding gases as feasible in order to increase muzzle velocity.  Second, there is friction in the barrel, which is a detriment to the work being done by the expanding gases.

So there is a turnover point on the curve of barrel length versus muzzle velocity, where you no longer gain muzzle velocity with increased barrel length.  So McHale performed some testing of barrel lengths, and this is what he came up with.

The difference between the 16″ and 18″ barrel is greater than the difference between the 18″ and 20″ barrel.  But barrel lengths greater than 18″ doesn’t buy you much.  McHale also has some data on the .300 Blackout round that looks interesting.

The one thing he didn’t give us is the effects of 14.5″ barrels (as with the M4), or pistol length barrels (e.g., 10″ barrels).  I would like to see some test data on that, and unless persuaded otherwise I have to believe that the SpecOps trend to use shorter and shorter barrels lengths along with suppressors is adversely effecting muzzle velocity.

John Podeta in his own words.

John Podesta, chairman of Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential campaign, suggested Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin was indeed “personally involved” in the election email hacks because Russia wanted Donald Trump as its “lap dog” in the White House.

“Russia clearly intervened,” Podesta said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” in a series of carefully worded responses about who was behind the hacked emails and their impact on Clinton’s losing campaign.

Podesta’s “lap dog” comment was an apparent reference to New York Times op-ed columist Nicholas Kristof implying Saturday in the paper that Trump would be a “lap dog — a Russian poodle.”

Podesta, whose personal email account was hacked, also said Sunday that he has been contacted by the FBI only once about the ordeal, two days after WikiLeaks began publishing on Oct. 7 the trove of electronic messages.

He said that “NBC revealed that Putin was personally involved” and that the “CIA, FBI and (Director of National Intelligence James Clapper) all agree that the Russians did it to help Trump.”

I haven’t watched the interview since I don’t watch the MSM in any capacity whatsoever.  But I’m willing to bet that the interviewer didn’t challenge him on the lie he told.  The FIB and the ODNI have certainly not said any such thing.

Meanwhile, much of the media has ignored the rather salient fact that the FBI is by no means in agreement with the anonymous and secret CIA assessment that Russia interfered with the election in order to help elect Donald Trump.

Nor, for that matter, is the Office of the Director for National Intelligence (ODNI), which has declined to endorse the CIA report. This is perhaps less surprising than it first might seem, considering that as recently as November 17 ODNI Director James Clapper testified before the House Intelligence Committee and acknowledged that “as far as the WikiLeaks connection, the evidence there is not as strong and we don’t have good insight into the sequencing of the releases or when the data may have been provided.”

See also a Fox News report.  The national intelligence community has said the opposite of what Podesta claimed they said.  Furthermore, as we’ve discussed before, the CIA is alone in this assessment and lacks the reputation to say such things.  No reputable party is asserting that the emails given to Wikileaks came from anywhere but insider leaks.

John Podesta is a bitter clinger, we must conclude.  But consider for a moment what he wants you to believe.  He wants you to believe that release of his emails, by whatever method at all, caused the American public to reject the Clinton campaign because of its nefarious contents, and therefore that those contents should never have been released.

Ögmundur Jónasson, previously an Icelandic minister, became aware of an illegal framing attempt on the part of the U.S. government.  Here he is in his own words.

You are “the minister” who refused to cooperate with the FBI because you suspected their agents on mission in Iceland were trying to frame Julian Assange. Do you confirm this?

Yes. What happened was that in June 2011, US authorities made some approaches to us indicating they had knowledge of hackers wanting to destroy software systems in Iceland. I was a minister at the time. They offered help. I was suspicious, well aware that a helping hand might easily become a manipulating hand!

Later in the summer, in August, they sent a planeload of FBI agents to Iceland seeking our cooperation in what I understood as an operation set up to frame Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.

Since they had not been authorised by the Icelandic authorities to carry out police work in Iceland and since a crack-down on WikiLeaks was not on my agenda, to say the least, I ordered that all cooperation with them be promptly terminated and I also made it clear that they should cease all activities in Iceland immediately.

It was also made clear to them that they were to leave the country. They were unable to get permission to operate in Iceland as police agents, but I believe they went to other countries, at least to Denmark. I also made it clear at the time that if I had to take sides with either WikiLeaks or the FBI or CIA, I would have no difficulty in choosing: I would be on the side of WikiLeaks.

This was published on December 7, 2016.  None of this is surprising.  But ask yourself about the notion of “fake news,” what the American MSM is telling you, and whether you heard this before?

The most probable answers are as follows: The American MSM is the undisputed king of fake news, and no you didn’t hear about this before.  But remember boys and girls, Google thinks web sites like this one are “fake news,” and shill Mark Zuckerberg is going to use … wait, don’t laugh … Snopes … to “fact check” news and label it as fake if they deem appropriate.

This is the largest disinformation and propaganda campaign in American history, with the U.S. government, Facebook, Google, and the MSM on one side, and you on the other.  You understand that, right?  The target is you.