Archive for the 'Politics' Category

Via Ken’s place, Michael Bane gives helpful observations.

• This is something I’m often deficient in, but I think we all need to be carrying less lethal weaponry in addition to a firearm. I just ordered a bunch of pepper spray (Sabre Red) to remedy that. I have bear spray for the car (you never know when you’re going to be attacked by bears in these strange times). In our upcoming episode of YOUR BEST DEFENSE, Cecil Burch notes that inside a car, gel makes more sense the spray because you don’t want all that pepper spray in your car or your kids. BTW, have you ever tried/had to function in a gas environment? The mob gets practice in that every night they riot. Consider taking a course…I recommend my friend Chuck Haggard. 

• Understand that if you use that gun or any weapon, for that matter, the full power of the state, in the form of state attorney generals bought and paid for by George Soros and Michael Bloomberg, and the media will be leveled against you. If you don’t have some form of concealed carry insurance (mine is through USCCA), sign up today. Have a criminal lawyer programmed into your phone, and talk to that lawyer IN ADVANCE. Yes, it’s going to cost you money up front, but in all likelihood (as in Kenosha) you are going to be charged with murder rather than hailed as a hero. That’s kinda a big deal.

• THERE IS A YUUUUGGGGEEEE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PROTECTING YOUR HOME AND FAMILY AND DOING A MARSHAL DILLON DOWNTOWN! It behooves you to understand that difference. Most states do not allow the use of deadly force to protect property, but it is all hellishly complex, giving you lots of gears to be caught up in. Trust Andrew Branca. I do.

• Should you do decide to go ahead with such an act, assume you will have to use the gun you are carrying. The current batch of urban terrorists are unlikely to melt away at the sight of a firearm. They are not scared of you or the gun. KNOW THE FREAKIN’ LAW in your state and community on lethal force! Standing over a couple of cooling bodies with a smoking AR is a bad time to consider the legality of your situation. THIS IS THE TIME TO NOT BE STUPID, KIDS! Read this: 

• Gabe Suarez once made a great point to me…people talk about who/what they’re willing to kill for, but the big question is actually what/who are you willing to die for, or spend the rest of your life in prison for? Gabe has made that type of hard decision. Cecil, Mike Seeklander and I have talked about that very point in the show going up next week. Where is your line in the sand? You’d better know that when you step out of the door with a gun.

• In ANY case, assume the peaceful protestors/terrorists you are facing are also armed. A brick is a weapon. A skateboard is a weapon. A frozen water bottle is a weapon. A gun, even a crappy zinc pistol, is a weapon and can kill you stone dead. I think we have to assume that at least some members of the mob have guns, and that number will probably be increasing.

• Understand that even in the best case, an armed individual can be overrun by a mob. And when they catch you, they are unlikely to be all that happy with you. I said in my book TRAIL SAFE that none of us needed to go looking for “High Noon,” because “High Noon” would eventually find us. THE GUN IS NOT A TALISMAN AGAINST EVIL! It only matters when it goes “Bang!”

• If you are facing guns, you must be thinking about your situation at at least a semblance of a military level…when you have to move, which direction are you going? WHERE IS COVER? Where is concealment? Where is more ammo? If you are at home, does your Spousal Unit or your kids know what you are planning to do? IS THERE A PLAN? There sure needs to be. And everyone needs to know it.

• You are carrying first aid/trauma gear (caveat, Riley is a friend, but I like his stuff), right? And you know how to use them, right? You don’t? GET THE TRAINING! The ability to save a life, maybe your own, is now a necessary skill. Start here. 

•. The police are not coming. The ambulance is not coming. The first responders who would have been on the scene in minutes in the Old Days — say, February — won’t be there for you. It’s just you and what supplies you have at hand.

He’s right about all of it, of course.  As readers know, I’m just now looking into med kits, I’ve been thinking about less than lethal weapons, and I have no carry insurance.

I’ve already written extensively on the Kenosha event, here (“What Started The Event?), here (“No, I Absolutely Do Not Stipulate That Kyle Rittenhouse Shouldn’t Have Been In Kenosha”), here (“What Does It Take To Be A Writer For Slate?”), here (“Three Criminals Shot In Kenosha, WI, Identified”), here (“Candid Observations At Reddit Concerning Kenosha, WI, Gun Battle”) and here (“One Rioter Gets Half His Arm Blown Off With Rifle Fire”).

But I can barely keep up with the breathtaking speed and dizzying accuracy of the analyses at both AR-15.com and Reddit/Firearms.

AR-15.com has comprehensive analyses at both this link and this one (the first being first in the sequence, the second being updated but different).

Reddit/Firearms also had a good analysis up, which has been taken down by the awful moderators, but which I lifted here (for the most part, although the loss of comments is regrettable).

The best video I’ve seen to date is a time-spliced video built and posted by a Redditor and dropped out as an MP4 file.  Here is the link (if the link gets taken down, I downloaded the full video and will repost).  Allow me to explain why I’m lifting some of the prose and explanation.  This is “fair use,” as I do not make a penny off of this web site.

Second, I’ve seen far too many valuable, creative, informative discussion threads removed by awful moderators to trust that it will be there in the future.  They could send me a certified letter signed by an attorney declaring that it will never be removed, and I’d still not trust them.  With that said, I will be lifting only parts of the explanation by the author, and I encourage you to go to the balance of the explanation and the comments (which are equally informative).

The Reddit/Firearms thread is here.

The entire thing is a single synced shot, with the exception of the part after the shooting where the entire clip from Regg’s stream of the shooting is played again, and a few seconds at the beginning showing CJ’s shot of Kyle leaving the gas station. Other than that, everything can be considered sequential, synced within about .05 seconds.

The first clip is mostly in there for irony’s sake, and to show that he was wearing his shirt properly earlier, but it’s part of a larger confrontation which started when rioters got angry at the gas station defenders for putting out a dumpster fire.
https://www.facebook.com/114093096999408/videos/581113739251513/?t=10740 (first shot fired at 3:49)
https://twitter.com/livesmattershow/status/1299058504813035520
https://www.reddit.com/r/ActualPublicFreakouts/comments/igsx41/
Joseph was there, and he was very angry at people.
https://instagram.com/p/CEcdMXcpN1a/
That may have been what prompted him to start chasing Kyle (long time after this incident happened) when he spotted him 50ft outside the gas station parking lot, or Kyle may have started running on his own, drawing people to chase him. Either way, he appears to start running with the extinguisher about a second before “burn inside” is yelled”, dropping it a few seconds later.

[ … ]

Highest quality video of the chase and initial shooting: https://twitter.com/livesmattershow/status/1298558424213594118
Second set of shootings: https://twitter.com/BGOnTheScene/status/1298502384654651392
Another shot of the shootings, plus a thread with aftermath (unused): https://twitter.com/Julio_Rosas11/status/1298484633143775234
Kyle leaving the station: https://twitter.com/ShelbyTalcott/status/1298487753718534144
CJ’s stream, the guy who provided first aid (7:30 for first shots): https://archive.is/J8wrx
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss-G-FX3Nys&t=3h58m
https://www.facebook.com/229855298387888/videos/726145031563748/?t=450
https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/clashes-between-protesters-and-armed-civilians-who-protect-the-streets-kenosha?
https://www.instagram.com/p/CEWCtCGFgc_/ (this is the libertarian who went viral the night before, he has a few statements about the situation in other posts)

Auxiliary footage (there’s more video from earlier in the night on their FB pages):
Aftermath Gore: https://twitter.com/Julio_Rosas11/status/1298501886987898880
Lakota’s footage, since he was following CJ: https://www.facebook.com/109372927557855/videos/619168862361016/
Therundownlive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz2jZ3TQzuk
RT footage, relevant bit at T minus 6 where Kyle asks the cops to go north to his workplace: https://www.facebook.com/552738918075145/videos/356037318743204/
Gaige’s POV (if anyone has his entire stream, let me know): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Auz1jUo1jp8
Compilation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MH4heiCYZQ

That’s all I’ll lift.  There’s a lot more at the link, and as I said, I encourage you to visit the link and watch the entire video (linked above), multiple times if you have to.  I have.

It’s obvious to me that Mr. Rittenhouse attempted to put out a fire caused by Rosenbaum, Rosenbaum didn’t like it (because he was trying to expand the fire to nearby buildings and police vehicles), and went after Rittenhouse.

Kyle Rittenhouse defended his life, and then others gave chase.  Kyle was on the ground when the rest of the shooting occurred, in one instance defending his life against an attack with a skateboard (which could be lethal in an attack to the head or spine), and in another instance against a convicted felon with a pistol who was advancing towards him (and who unapologetic and later claimed that his only regret is in not emptying his magazine into Kyle).

If you still don’t understand how this went down, I encourage you to go view the video again.  In the exchange, he killed a convicted sex offender (and also convicted arsonist), a wife beater, and wounded (and took out of the fight) another felon.

There’s another aspect that hasn’t been discussed at all, and that is the police interactions with the militia before this event went down.  Watch one of those present explain it to you.

pic.twitter.com/e1mfQcWtly

— Ryan (@EstaVivo) August 30, 2020

Let’s be clear.  The founders were deeply opposed to a standing army, and the police have become that standing army in many instances, especially with militarized tactics like SWAT teams and no-knock raids.

I’m not opposed to the use of militia to aid “peace officers.”  That’s how the founders intended it to work.  I’m also not opposed to what the Kenosha police told the militia, nor their intended use of the militia (assuming this report is true).

What I am opposed to is the arrest of Kyle Rittenhouse in this instance given that he was doing what was expected of him (and also acted only in self defense), and the office of the DA filing charges of murder against Rittenhouse.  The DA (Michael Graveley) will now use his office to conduct lawfare against the very people with whom the police made a bargain that very day.

But you can be sure of one thing.  Graveley’s office will make sure that the U.S. Department of Justice investigates the shooting of Jacob Blake.

It’s easy to say that St. Jacob Blake was the start, but he was only the pretext for the violence in Kenosha.

Most of this comes from good friend Len Savage, via AR-15.com.  As it turns out, Kyle Rittenhouse attempted to do what he came for, i.e., protect property.

“Kyle apparently ran up at the gas station and provided a fire extinguisher that put out Pedo Boy’s dumpster fire that he was pushing into the gas station … It pissed pedo boy off and they attempted to ambush and set the kid on fire to teach him a lesson…”

Then came screams of “get him.”  They wanted to burn things, Kyle tried to stop it, and for that they chased him down.

This was all in self defense, as his lawyers are pointing out.  Oh, and they’re not done yet.  They want to know where he is.

If he goes to a cell and anyone gets a lock on his location — email it to us https://t.co/f83kxUho4c

— Jailhouse Lawyers Speak — #August21 ⚔️ (@JailLawSpeak) August 26, 2020

If this Twitter post gets taken down, here is an archive of it.  I wonder if some DA will take this case up?

Before all of that, the very start of another video shows the cops telling people to go home since “they are civilians.”  Nothing pisses me off more than hearing that.  Cops are civilians too.

Any questions on the sort of people you’re dealing with?  Three convicted criminals got shot, one a wife-beater, another a pedophile, and finally one who came after Kyle with a pistol in his hand (who could not legally own that weapon), who were chasing Kyle down after he tried to stop burning of businesses, something the cops wouldn’t do themselves.

This may be one of the most videographed CQB events in history.  Kyle won.  That makes them angry.  It makes Antifa/BLM angry, and it makes the Kenosha DA angry.

This is just a bunch of bourgeois, trust fund white kids being supported by their parents. Either that, or George Soros money.

Hey Ted, how’s that appeasement thing going?  My readers want to know.

Also, a quick note to the Black Bloc.  Your music sucks.

There’s an antifa mosh pit outside @tedwheeler’s condo now. In addition to loud music, they’re flashing lights into his building. #PortlandRiots pic.twitter.com/rFnuyOKNUK

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) August 29, 2020

There’s some type of antifa concert outside of @tedwheeler’s condo as part of the occupation tonight. This is where they previously set up an autonomous zone in honor of a man who tried to kill people with a gun before being killed by police himself. pic.twitter.com/fIf0sAvAaV

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) August 29, 2020

Scott Walter writing at Capital Research Center.

Some conservatives have begun speculating the unrest in American cities—even as late as Monday night in Washington, DC, as “protestors” unsuccessfully worked to tear down a statue of Andrew Jackson and set up an autonomous zone across the street from the White House—may in part be an attempt to affect the upcoming presidential election, with the chaos and violence intended to make it as difficult as possible for Donald Trump to win a second term.

Lending credence to this idea is the fact that at least one board member of Thousand Currents—the group fiscally sponsoring the most organized part of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, who have been involved in most of the activity surrounding the current unrest—tried the same thing almost 40 years ago during Ronald Reagan’s reelection campaign. And it landed her in federal prison for 16 years.

If there were any question whether Black Lives Matter has ideological ties to the Communist terrorists of the 1960s, the story of Susan Rosenberg [archived here] should put that issue to bed.

Rosenberg, who started out as a member of the 1960s revolutionary group Weather Underground, graduated into even more violent, and arguably successful, forms of terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s—including bombings at an FBI field office in Staten Island, the Navy Yard Officers’ Club in Washington, DC, and even the U.S. Capitol building, where she damaged a representation of the greatest of the Democrat defenders of slavery, John C. Calhoun. She currently serves as human and prisoner rights advocate and a vice chair of the board of directors of Thousand Currents.

As my colleague Robert Stilson explains here, BLM Global Network Foundation has been a fiscally sponsored project of Thousand Currents, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, since 2016.  That means the BLM group, which runs the BlackLivesMatter.com website, does not have its own IRS tax-exempt status but is operating as a “project” of an organization that does. In the case of 501(c)(3) fiscally sponsored projects, this allows tax-deductible donations to be made to the project.

When “Black Lives Matter” is used to refer to an organization, it typically means the BLM Global Network Foundation that traces its beginnings to “three radical Black organizers — Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi.” Cullors recently went viral online when she admitted that she and others in the group were “trained Marxists.”

This leads to confusion when people express their support for “Black Lives,” because they may not realize this organization is ideologically tied—to the point of having Rosenberg on the board of the central group—with trained Marxists with a history of extremism and violence. In fact, Rosenberg was a member of the May 19th Communist Organization (M19). It was, according to this NY Post article from January 2020, “the nation’s only woman-run terror group,” as recounted by William Rosenau in his book Tonight We Bombed the U.S. Capitol.

And like all good communists, they hate Jesus because they want to be God.

It’s been said that the only good communist is dead communist.  I disagree.  There are no good communists, dead or alive.  They’re all in hell or headed that way.

Mark Joseph Stern writing at Slate.

This narrative transforms Rittenhouse from an unstable killer to a Second Amendment hero. And you need only accept a few fictions to buy into it. First, you must believe that the protesters chasing down Rittenhouse and attempting to wrest his gun away were not trying to prevent further bloodshed, but simply to brutalize him. Second, you must agree that even if these protesters were trying to confiscate Rittenhouse’s gun, they were wrong to do so, because they were the vicious lawbreakers and he was the vulnerable peacekeeper. Third, you must embrace a definition of self-defense so capacious that it allows a gunman to legally shoot a civilian dead when that civilian is trying to seize a weapon the gunman has used to kill someone. Or, as the New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie put it, “if someone is trying to stop you after you killed someone, you can continue shooting and killing in ‘self-defense.’ ”

In order to be a writer at Slate, you only have to be willing to hawk fiction like the three convicted criminals trying to kill Rittenhouse were only “attempting to wrest his gun away.”

Without even a scintilla of evidence, you have to be willing to publish information you know to be false, like they had no intention of brutalizing him.

Oh, and here’s the criminal in his own words.

Here is a potential assassin learning a lesson about self-defense, the Second Amendment, and what real courage looks like. pic.twitter.com/NhtaHSBJKI

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) August 27, 2020

Residents of Minneapolis exercising their version of reparations in their own way.

Ppl breaking windows while police look on from inside pic.twitter.com/SzCoSDFnte

— Andy Mannix (@AndrewMannix) August 27, 2020

More looting in downtown Minneapolis. They’ve now breached the Saks 5th Avenue store on 6th and Nicollet and people are making out with lots of goods. pic.twitter.com/tgUIyoIMvf

— Courtney Godfrey (@courtneygodfrey) August 27, 2020

Many shots fired in #Minneapolis just now pic.twitter.com/ghn46f1AIZ

— Kitty Shackleford (@KittyLists) August 27, 2020

The 3 shot (2 killed) in #Kenosha, Wisc. at the BLM riot have been identified.

Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, was the first one killed. Video allegedly shows him chasing teen shooter & throwing something at him. Rosenbaum was a registered sex offender for a sex crime involving a minor. pic.twitter.com/up1VgDyrgZ

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) August 27, 2020

There’s a photo of the 17yo shooter being bashed over the head with a skateboard by the person he then shot and killed. This wreaks of self defense. Yet the msm labeled him as “white supremacist”, “vigilante”, “militia” etc. pic.twitter.com/1kSLBPct3W

— U. Skellgaard (@smspk) August 27, 2020

As a reader puts it to me, “All three people shot were felons, from child rapists (head shot), to multiple cases of assault.  Kyle shot the rapist in the head in self defense, then was forced to flee the mob. The rapist died.  Kyle tripped.  He was drop kicked in the face by someone that ran away.  Next a felon assaulted him with a skateboard, and tried to take his rifle. He was shot center mass and died.  Another Felon ran toward Kyle and pulled a pistol out. Kyle shot him in the arm and pretty much shredded it.”

“First one up was just out after 12 years for child rape…Mr. Shot in the heart was a convicted wife beater and dude with his arm blown open is a convicted burglar and was a felon in possession of a handgun when he got shot (trying to execute the 17year old).”

Yea, I won’t be shedding any tears for them.  Awful people.  But of course they’re associated with this activity, so they are awful people for doing that too.

See also AR-15.com.