Recall precisely one month ago when I said this?

First, trot out some CIA shills to say that Russia was meddling in the affairs of America.  Unnamed people, saying things using unnamed sources, of course.  Next, claim that any porn or CP found on computers is a Russian plant.  Next, quickly and silently pass the Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act.  Next, trot out Senator John McCain to say that he cannot believe that Trump doesn’t believe all of this.

Today, we learned this.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told a Senate committee hearing that he wouldn’t be surprised if Russian hackers put child pornography on US computers.

The only step I missed was the one on the ridiculous claims about Trump in Prague.  That way, the intel community can say, “See, even you’ve been affected by that horrible Vlad dude who did nefarious things to your reputation.  They did it to us too!”

They’re so damned predictable they don’t even make this difficult for me.

This is rich.

When Kai Kloepfer points his .40 caliber handgun, it fires like any other weapon. But when someone else gives it a try, it doesn’t work. It’s the first firearm with same built-in security as many smartphones.

If the gun is picked up by an authorized user, a sensor recognizes the fingerprint and it will fire.

Guns that only work for their owners used to be the stuff of movies, like James Bond’s gun in “Skyfall,” but Kloepfer thinks he has the technology to make them a reality, reports CBS News correspondent Tony Dokoupil.

“I think this could be huge. I think it could really be the future of firearms,” Kloepfer said.

He’s the founder of BioFire, a start-up still headquartered in his parent’s house in Boulder, Colorado. Now a freshman at MIT, Kloepfer started work on his gun as part of a science project when he was 15 years old.

“There’d be days when I’d sit down … I’d look up 14 hours later. I hadn’t moved from the spot. I hadn’t thought about anything else,” Kloepfer said.

He realized he couldn’t stop mass shootings, but he thought he could still save lives.

After all, in one year alone, nearly 600 people died in firearm accidents. There were thousands more suicides, many committed with guns that do not belong to the victim.

“Why did it take four and a half years to put a fingerprint reader on the side of a gun?” Dokoupil asked him.

“Well, it’s not as simple of a process as you might imagine,” Kloepfer said. “It’s also not something anybody has ever done before.”

Kloepfer’s weapon doesn’t only lock like a smart phone – it charges like one.

The invention has won him some deep-pocketed allies.

“Kai is the Mark Zuckerberg of guns,” Ron Conway said.

Conway was an early investor in Google and Facebook, and now he’s a putting his money behind Kloepfer’s smart gun.

“What Kai has done is used all of the latest technology available us to innovate a truly authenticated gun. You couldn’t do this five years ago,” Conway said.

But a push for similar guns misfired memorably in the late 1990s. A Colt prototype failed in a major demonstration, and Smith & Wesson dropped its smart gun program after resulting boycotts nearly bankrupted the company.

“What has changed from then until now to make it possible to make a smart gun like the one you’re working on?” Dokoupil asked.

“I would argue pretty much everything,” Kloepfer said.

Well, almost everything.

“Good intentions don’t necessarily make good inventions,” said Stephen Sanetti, president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. They’re the main trade group for companies that make and sell guns.

Sanetti expressed concern about the reliability of any firearm that depends on battery power.

“The firearm has to work. And a firearm is not the same as a cell phone,” Sanetti said. “The consequences of a cell phone not working are inconvenience. The consequences of a firearm not working could be someone’s life.”

Kloepfer said his gun is “relatively reliable.”

How many of you want a gun, a more expensive gun I might add, that is “relatively reliable?”

So young engineer (I’m so sorry, I’m an engineer and I hate that you’re getting ready to throw your career away on something like this, but apparently there is no one around who can counsel you any better).  Here is what you need to do.

… let’s talk yet again about smart gun technology.  I am a registered professional engineer, and I spend all day analyzing things and performing calculations.  Let’s not speak in broad generalities and murky platitudes (such as “good enough”).  That doesn’t work with me.  By education, training and experience, I reject such things out of hand.  Perform a fault tree analysis of smart guns.  Use highly respected guidance like the NRC fault tree handbook.

Assess the reliability of one of my semi-automatic handguns as the first state point, and then add smart gun technology to it, and assess it again.  Compare the state points.  Then do that again with a revolver.  Be honest.  Assign a failure probability of greater than zero (0) to the smart technology, because you know that each additional electronic and mechanical component has a failure probability of greater than zero.

Get a PE to seal the work to demonstrate thorough and independent review.  If you can prove that so-called “smart guns” are as reliable as my guns, I’ll pour ketchup on my hard hat, eat it, and post video for everyone to see.  If you lose, you buy me the gun of my choice.  No one will take the challenge because you will lose that challenge.  I’ll win.  Case closed.  End of discussion.

Unless you can design a gun that has a delta of precisely zero (0) greater failure probability, is as light, aesthetically pleasing, no more weighty or roomy, and just a cheap as classic guns, there is no market for your toy.

Sorry.  And actually, there wouldn’t be any market anyway even if it met all of those stipulations because the government or a perpetrator (perhaps I’m being redundant) might be able to use the electronic features to turn the gun off when they wanted to.

But I don’t want to be too negative on this, because I want to see companies go bankrupt funding the research.  So carry on.

George begins to tie the bow on the present for the incoming government, which may or may not be in a position or have the moral courage to deal with the problem.  George also names names, including sitting Senators.  Listen carefully.

An interesting point comes up in the video that will make you think a bit.  George says that in his opinion, a DynCorps person will be at the bottom of the pile of bodies in every mass shooting in America you can remember, at least the recent ones.

Think about that for a moment.  And watch his video for the beginning stages of wrapping this all up.

Consider the ridiculous and obscene spectacle you’ve witnessed yesterday and today.  We all knew that the MSM was dead.  We knew that the CIA and FBI was involved in international drug trade, human trafficking, toppling of countries and weapons trafficking.

But the level of childishness we’ve witnessed is beyond belief.  The WSJ has a version that goes something like this.

A former British intelligence officer who is now a director of a private security-and-investigations firm has been identified as the author of the dossier of unverified allegations about President-elect Donald Trump’s activities and connections in Russia, people familiar with the matter say.

Christopher Steele, a director of London-based Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd., prepared the dossier, the people said. The document alleges that the Kremlin colluded with Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign and claims that Russian officials have compromising evidence of Mr. Trump’s behavior that could be used to blackmail him. Mr. Trump has dismissed the dossier’s contents as false and Russia has denied the claims.

Mr. Steele, 52 years old, is one of two directors of the firm, along with Christopher Burrows, 58.

Mr. Burrows, reached at his home outside London on Wednesday, said he wouldn’t “confirm or deny” that Orbis had produced the report. A neighbor of Mr. Steele’s said Mr. Steele said he would be away for a few days. In previous weeks Mr. Steele has declined repeated requests for interviews through an intermediary, who said the subject was “too hot.”

4Chan has a different version that can be read here and here.  Here is a summary.

On january 10, Buzzfeed posted a story under the byline of Ken Bensinger, Mark Schoofs and Miriam elder titled “these reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties To Russia” and posted a link to a document alleging, among other things, that russia has been cultivating trump for 5+ years, that trump has been in constant contact with the kremlin for information on his opponents, and perhaps most inflammatory, that there are many recorded instances of blackmail of trump in sexual misconduct. A prominent claim is that trump rented the presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton Hotel in moscow, where he knew that the Obamas had slept in; he them hired a number of prostitutes to perform a ‘golden shower’ (pissplay) on the bed and in the room. https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-trump-has-deep-ties-to-russia?utm_term=.jdyKR56pj#.skw2lK8Nd

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3259984/Trump-Intelligence-Allegations.pdf

Noted #nevertrump voice Rick Wilson later commented on twitter, stating that the report “gave a new meaning to Wikileaks” (https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/818982395202379777) and that the report was the reason everybody was fighting so hard against the election of Trump. (https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/818983514335047680)

The remarkable thing? It’s all fake. And not only fake; it’s a prank perpetuated by 4chan, on Rick Wilson himself. A post on 4chan on october 26 stated “mfw managed to convince CTR and certain (((journalists))) on Twitter there’ll be an October surprise on Trump this Friday” along with a picture of a smug face with a hash name. http://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/94704894/#94705224on november 1, a person without a picture but is assumed to be the same person posted “So they took what I told Rick Wilson and added a Russian spy angle to it. They still believe it. Guys, they’re truly fucking desperate – there’s no remaining Trump scandal that’s credible.” https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/95568919/#95571329on january 10, moments after the story broke and began to gain traction on social media, a person with the same smug grin face, and the same hash title for the picture, stated “I didn’t think they’d take it so far.” http://boards.4chan.org/pol/thread/106514445#p106520376

This story has taken on something of a life of it’s own. Going through Rick Wilson’s twitter, you can find many different stories from the time that he had shown the story to a wide number of anti-trump news sources, trying to find a news organization that would actually publish the story. During that time period, he referred to it often as ‘the thing’, and often playing coy with followers on the content with the story with anybody who was not also a #Nevertrumper. Unconfirmed sources has people as high up as John McCain giving the story to FBI Director James Comey to attempt to verify the story. Given that Rick Wilson runs in Establishment circles, it is not an impossible scenario that long-serving senators are falling for what amounts to a 4chan troll trump supporter creating an ironic October Surprise out of wholecloth to punk a GOPe pundit who derogatorily referred to them as single men who masturbate to anime.

Either way, or perhaps with some combination of the two, 4Chan is trolling and gas lighting the GOPe and they fell for it, John McCain the hardest for handing such a thing to the CIA.

But the CIA looks like school boys.  They didn’t even verify the simplest of things, e.g., people named in the report.  Donald Trump is suspicious, as he should be, and proved today with his own little sting operation that there are leaks coming from the intelligence community.

Here is what Trump should do.  He should bust up the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the wind to be blown away like so much tares (Matthew 13).  They haven’t helped with anything at all in recent memory, not OIF or OEF, not Iran, not Egypt, not Benghazi, nothing.  They have stayed silent on #Pizzagate, and they continue to follow the seven-country plan George Webb has so thoroughly dissected.

They have been an impediment to peace and stability, and they are involved in the international drug trade and trafficking of weapons, oil, money and humans.  They can’t present a real piece of intelligence to the President-elect, what they tell him has to be assumed to be worthless or worse, lies designed to cause some sort of instability or to enrich some billionaire.

They can’t even talk to the President-elect without going to the press and gossiping about it.  I guess those homes in D.C. and Alexandria have become a little too comfy, those college tuition payments for their children a little too reliable, the demands on them a little too soft, and the moral expectations far too low.

Bust the entire organization up and rebuild it some other way, some other time, and some other place.  We don’t need them.

UPDATE:

It dawned on me that many of my current readers haven’t been with me for ten years, long ago when I was doing primarily military blogging.  “Sam Culper” makes a comment at WRSA that caused me to fill in the blanks a bit, and I thought I would paste it here.  Sam doesn’t like my prescription or my “demeaning” the entire organization because of some bad apples.  He responds to what I paste, and feel free to go over to WRSA and see what Sam posted.  But I figured that I owed my newer readers a rundown of the long history I have with the DIA/CIA.

Begin paste.

I was reviewing the book on JSOC by Sean Naylor (he sent it to me for a review), and those on the ground knew within two days exactly who conducted the assault on Benghazi. Down to the group and people who did it.

They beat me and my readers by only about a day. My military readers knew within hours that it was a pre-planned, well-coordinated assault with comms, known coordinates and the use of combined arms. Within a few more days we had outlined the QRF and other assets available for assistance. Again, the men on the ground beat us by a couple of days, and they were there, we were in the states with no direct access to intel.

I outlined the need for border security in Western Iraq (esp. in the al-Qa’im area) well before they ever began to perform interdiction ops or assist the local LEOs in that area. As it turned out, 80-100 foreign fighters were coming through that little town per month from Syria. The intel community was only a couple of years behind me.

As for Afghanistan, I called out General David Rodriguez for the idiot he was (I am not being emotional here – Rodriguez is an idiot). When he went on the record saying that the Taliban were on their heels and there wouldn’t be a spring offensive, I said that there would be a robust spring offensive and I outlined EXACTLY what the Taliban would do. I said in multiple posts that they would attack the Northern and Southern logistics lines, Khyber and Chaman. Sure enough, that’s EXACTLY what they did in the spring, and because we were sitting in comfy FOBs thinking we had won, we weren’t ready. I suggested sending the Marines to the Hindu Kush because of this, and where did they send them? Helmand. So in Helmand I watched what was happening in Now Zad, and one year before we actually boosted the presence in Now Zad Marines were being cut to pieces and had to have a high surgeon to Marine ratio there because we didn’t take it seriously. To this day Tim Lynch will tell you I was the only one covering Now Zad. Everyone else was in a fog, including the intel community.

I could go on, and on, and on, and on. These are merely quick examples off the top of my head. I know I was being read in *.mil network and *.gov domains and that I was being heard. I saw the visits. They just ignored me.

It’s one thing to believe that there are patriots left. It’s quite another to say that they are producing anything of value if it’s not being read or used. You might disagree with my conclusions or prescriptions, but I assure you I didn’t write it in an emotional fit. This has been ten years in the making.

End paste.

News from Florida:

Last week’s shooting at the Fort Lauderdale airport hasn’t put a dent in Sen. Greg Steube’s plan to allow concealed weapons permit holders to carry their firearms in airports. In fact, it’s only strengthened his resolve to pass the legislation, which he says is desperately needed to prevent future mass shootings in the Sunshine State.

“The situation at the airport further puts a big spotlight on the fact that gun free zones and laws that prevent law abiding citizens to carry.. the only person that protects is the criminal,” Steube told Sunshine State News Wednesday.

Steube’s proposal, SB 140, would lift some “gun free” zones in Florida where carrying firearms is prohibited, even for concealed carry permit holders.

If passed, the bill would allow Florida’s 1.7 million CCW permit holders to openly carry their firearms. The more sweeping part of the measure, however, would eliminate gun-free zones in places like secondary schools, local centers and government meeting areas.

Airports are also included.

Since last week’s shooting which left five dead and six wounded, Steube’s phone has been ringing off the hook. On Tuesday, the day the bill was supposed to be heard in the Senate Judiciary Committee, his district office received 120 calls alone.

He doesn’t understand why there’s such a resistance to CCW permit holders carrying their firearms around since they have to undergo background checks.  Statistically speaking, permit holders follow the letter of the law.

A 2015 report found CCW permit holders committed crimes at a much lower rate than police officers did. A Police Quarterly study from 2005 to 2007 saw an average of 103 crimes by police per 100,000 officers.

Well, all of that is true, but notice that the argument he uses to persuade others is based on data rather than fundamental and properly basic rights.  Very well.  Remember what we’ve discussed – incrementalism.  A bill doesn’t have to be perfect to get my support.  We can go for constitutional carry later.  One step at a time.

As for the airport shooting, someone remarked to me that things like this make our argument harder.  I disagree.  It makes our argument crystal clear.  As to how the shooter got a gun in the airport, he did so legally, just like a perpetrator can do it on virtually any street corner or grocery store in America.

Imagine this being on a street corner and someone asking, “just exactly how did this person come to have a gun to begin with?”  This is a stupid question, of course.  It’s likely he bought it.  If not, he stole it.  What does it matter?  Criminals intent on crime don’t care how they prepare for perpetration of their crime.

The only defense against this is to allow others (law abiding men and women) to carry weapons, openly and concealed.  Make your choice.  Don’t dictate how a man carries his weapon.  People who do that piss me off.  Word. They should drop their pink panties and put on big boy shorts.  Grow up and leave everyone alone instead of trying to be mommy.

How a man carries his weapon is analogous to what color he paints his car.  It’s his business, not yours.

Letter from a reader.

Greetings Herschel, I have been fascinated by the Garand rifle for sixty years, ever since I was handed one in ROTC and taught its operation and care.  I have since been able to acquire two of them, a 1942 Springfield Armory one I am in the process of back-dating to its original form, and  Korean War era rifle from International Harvester. Sixty years ago we were told that Mr. Garand was an employee of the United States Government, and that he developed his rifle “on the clock.”  The patents, and any royalties, were not his to assign.  I don’t know where Click magazine got its information, but I tend to believe the story as I heard it. I get nervous about disagreeing with Sgt. Emery, who has “been there and done that,” but in what you quoted, I think he is wrong.  Let me explain. The U.S. Rifle, caliber .30, M1 was designed to fire a specific cartridge (Ball M2 or AP M2), which used a powder of medium burning rate, usually IMR4895 or IMR4064. Slower powders will get much more performance out of the .30-06 cartridge, but the higher pressure at the M1’s gas port will quickly beat the operating rod out of spec. The rifle won’t “blow up,” but it will quickly become a manually operated bolt action, and eventually become useless, if fed improperly.  People like Hornady sell ammunition loaded to Ball M2 spec specifically for use in Garand rifles. The newer cartridge used in the M14 rifle fired the same bullet (150 grains) at the same velocity (2750 ft/s), and did so by using different powder and pressure.  The round of the M14 is smaller than that of the M1, but the punch is identical. Even in civilian use, the .30-06 (7.62×63) surpasses the .308 Winchester (7.62×51) only slightly until bullets heavier than 180 bullets are used, after which the difference becomes noticeable.  But in military usage, the M14 is the equal ballistically of the M1, because of the latter’s need to limit pressure at its gas port. Although I disagree with Sgt. Emery on this one point, I would still consider it an honor to buy him a beer. Thanks for your blog, Herschel, and best wishes for a Happy New Year,

[Name redacted because I never know if readers are okay with me publishing names]

(and please be careful when you walk in the park)

Thank you sir.  I’m circumspect.

David Seaman does something very simple in this video, something I should have thought about doing long ago.  He issues a challenge.  I’ll repeat that challenge.

To any FBI or CIA agent or analyst who is willing to contact me and supply proof of employment and station, I’ll publish your information on John Podesta proving that he isn’t a child molester, isn’t involved in human trafficking, and isn’t involved in Brownstone operations of any kind, and never has been.  As for that matter, I’ll offer up the same challenge regarding James Alefantis.  Tell us if we’re all wrong on #Pizzagate.

You have my contact information on the contact page.  I’m waiting.

How would you like to see Trey Gowdy cross examine the actors in the drug, money, oil, weapons and child trafficking scandal?  I would actually pay good money to watch that.  A lot of it.  The Congress could sell tickets for a hefty sum of money, and use that to pay the federal marshals to go arrest the bad actors who are currently hidden from view. As for my take, I’ll wait and see. Perhaps George knows something I don’t about all of this. Chaffetz always seem to step right up to the river, but then refuses to get his feet wet. Fast and Furious is but one example.

I do want to address one thing.  You’re going to notice George triangulating on the question “Did Neil Brown and Eric Braverman know about the human trafficking part of these operations?”  He has mentioned that in the past several videos.

Now to be sure, the human trafficking part of this is obscene, awful, hideous and repugnant.  But let me be clear about this.  The Scriptural stipulations for the crimes of rape, kidnapping and murder are all the same: the death penalty.  It makes it no less obscene and criminal if Neil Brown and Eric Braverman knew only about the oil, wars, killings, drug running, and weapons trafficking but didn’t know about the human trafficking.

Men, women and children died as a result of their quest for power and money.  The guilty must be punished.  The American people will demand nothing less.  Oh, and by the way, as for that argument that George is sure will come that we, the CIA, only wanted to get the evidence and shut these rings down, that’s rather like finding your kid in the cookie jar only to hear him say that he was going to turn in his brother.  He’s really on your side.

That’s bullshit, of course.

LA Times:

The gun lobby certainly is adept at promoting counterintuitive (and probably counterproductive) policy positions, such as that the answer to gun violence in America is more guns. Politicians certainly are adept at giving their bills titles that conceal their purpose, like calling a bill that narrows privacy rights and constrains civil liberties the “Patriot Act.”

Put these proclivities together, and you get the “Hearing Protection Act,” introduced Monday by Reps. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) and John Carter (R-Texas). From the title alone, you’d have no idea that it’s about deregulating the sale of gun silencers.

Stiff federal regulations on silencers date back to 1934, when they were enacted as part of a crackdown on machine guns and other instruments of mobster violence. (Thanks to the Washington Post’s Michael Rosenwald for some of this history.) In recent years, they’ve stuck in the gun lobby’s craw, as do most restrictions on the sale of firearms and related equipment.

But treating the use of silencers as a public health issue is a relatively new twist. It was first tried in connection with a precursor bill to the Duncan-Carter measure that was introduced in 2015 and died in committee.

[ … ]

Gun control advocates don’t buy these pro-silencer arguments and neither should you. The argument that silencer sales promote public health by protecting hearing is a smokescreen, they say, for a deregulatory initiative that would largely benefit the firearms industry while increasing the dangers of firearm violence.

“There’s no evidence of a public health issue associated with hearing loss from gunfire,” says Kristin Brown of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “There is evidence of a public health crisis from gun violence, and we think that’s where legislative efforts should be directed.”

[ … ]

The real flaw in the silencer lobby’s efforts, however, may be the patent obviousness of their fakery. Calling the Duncan-Carter bill the “Hearing Protection Act” is so absurdly transparent an effort to deceive that voters may be prompted to ask an obvious question: “What are they hiding?”

Okay.  Your insightful analysis has got me.  I have to admit it.  I have to confess, and I expect it will be good for the soul.

No, I don’t want to be a mobster.  I’m just fed up as hell with having to take off my ear muffs when I need to communicate something to a fellow shooter, only to have to sustain damage to my hearing if I don’t move back while I’m at a range.  I’m just fed up as hell with having ear muffs interfere with my cheek weld when I’m shooting a rifle.

As for the notion that you won’t be able to hear gunfire if people actually purchase suppressors, I wouldn’t worry about that too much.  I think you’ll still have time to “run, hide and fight” in the case of an attacker.  I don’t really take you for the kind of guy who would run to the sound of gunfire to assist others anyway.  And I’m sure you wouldn’t have the means to stop a shooter if you did do so.

You can just wait that precious 12 -15 minutes for the LEOs to get there and another 30 for them to assess the situation and send in a SWAT team.  Whether you or your loved ones perish will be a function of a number of things, but hey, take heart!  California has that awesome law that limits the number of folks he can kill to ten at a time until he slaps the next magazine in (about a second or so).  I’m sure a criminal won’t have access to those terrible 30 round mags.

CBS:

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Monday he was uncertain whether support exists in the Legislature for so-called “constitutional carry,” which would give all Texans the right to openly carry a firearm — with or without a permit.

In a radio interview, Patrick noted that last session lawmakers passed legislation allowing the open carry of handguns, a proposal whose support he had also questioned at the start of the session.

“On constitutional carry, I’ll say the same thing: I don’t know if the votes are there,” Patrick told San Antonio host Trey Ware.

Patrick did express some wariness about constitutional carry, citing law enforcement concerns. Patrick has made championing police a priority, especially after a shooting last year in Dallas that killed five officers and wounded seven others.

Let’s deal with the second issue first.  I would lay good money down that Dan Patrick has been listening to communist Art Acevedo, who is leaving Austin and going to Houston, who opposed open carry, and who enabled the federal government to come into his county and take forced blood draws during random traffic stops in violation of the constitution.

Or he has been talking to someone equally as communist as Art.  So the strategy he has chosen is a common one and is designed to protect his boys in the Texas Senate and House from exposure.

He simply says that he doesn’t know if there are enough votes.  That way, it gets killed in committee and the anti-gun politicians never out themselves with a formal vote on a bill.

I hate the idea of committees anyway because they are a good way to formulate compromise legislation that ends up bilking people for money, sending that money to constituents and then ultimately doing no good with meaningless legislation.

The solution for this is to call out his strategy as the ruse and lie that it is, bring a bill to a vote, and then use that information to destroy the political careers of the gun controllers.  It’s what Dan doesn’t want to happen, but it must happen.