Articles by Herschel Smith

I see that the evil despot Fidel Castro is dead.  Good riddance.  I’ll toast his demise with a good glass of wine tonight.  He is in hell now, an appropriate place for him to spend eternity.

Like all communist dictators, he enriched and engorged himself and his cronies while the poor people of Cuba starved to death and perished in filthy hospitals.  The people of Cuba couldn’t enjoy the God-given right of self determination and worship as they saw fit, and couldn’t work without having to give the majority of it to the awful men who ruled over them.  It’s fitting that the only two world “leaders” who mourned Castro’s death are the awful Barack Obama and Justin Trudeau.

Donald Trump does much better, and Ted Cruz spews venom at the memory of Castro.  I grew up with the Castro regime, but it you’re young and don’t know about the man, you can learn all you need to know about him to interpret the rest of his life and work in three words.  Armas para que?

The Cuban revolution was no American one, and Castro’s embracing of communism after convincing the world he was a freedom fighter should remind all who can think of the “fool me once” adage.

As should Castro’s pointed question when making his case that the people no longer had legitimate need of guns, and that his administration should be the only ones wielding a monopoly of violence.

Read the rest of David’s piece for an eye opener concerning a previous position take by Guns Magazine.  David also points out that “Castro moved against private gun ownership the second day he was in power. He sent his thugs throughout the island using the gun registry lists — compiled by the preceding Batista regime — to confiscate the people’s firearms.”

Very well.  That places him squarely in the camp with ISIS and the Northeastern and West Coast democrats.

The Morning Call:

A Nazareth police officer went rogue on the department’s Facebook page Wednesday morning, according to borough officials, encouraging gun owners to “exercise your 2nd Amendment rights to bear arms” in the wake of a homicide and carjacking this week in Palmer Township.

Nazareth police Commissioner Randall Miller said he learned of the post after receiving a call from the mayor and had it removed immediately, acknowledging that it could have been interpreted as vigilantism.

On the police Facebook page, the department wished the public a “safe Thanksgiving vacation,” gave details of the crimes that happened Monday and Tuesday night in Palmer, and then said:

“We ask and encourage those of you who are responsible and educated enough to exercise your 2nd Amendment right to bear arms. Providing you can and are legally able to possess a firearm and that you follow the Pennsylvania laws and local ordinances when doing so … If when ever possible CALL 911 FIRST, if you believe you see someone or something suspicious. Do not engage and use Extreme Caution!”

A police officer must have indeed gone rogue in order to suggest that someone exercise their second amendment rights.  I’m glad that the police chief had it immediately removed, because someone might have been able to save his life or the lives of loved ones in the case of attempted homicide without the assistance of the police.  They might begin to be responsible for themselves.

Actually, sarcasm aside, it’s sad that the chief equates suspicious looking people with attempted homicide, and assumes that the knuckle dragging dirt people are so stupid that they cannot differentiate between the two.  It sounds to me like the town needs both a new mayor and police chief.  The cop who posted this on Facebook can stay.  And dump that damn Facebook page, guys.  Facebook is for making Mark Zuckerberg rich.  You don’t want to do that.

Coming to a neighborhood near you very soon.

mySA:

A Converse man who used his AR-15 rifle to detain four men he thought were going to burglarize his neighbor’s home last month now finds himself on the wrong side of the law.

Coty Bob McDonnell, 31, made his initial appearance Monday on a charge of deadly conduct, a misdemeanor, but the case was reset for next month.

Converse police arrested McDonnell on the night of Oct. 22 or early Oct. 23 after he detained the men, believing they were burglars, according to an account provided by his neighbor, Doug Stearns, and his lawyer, Daniel De La Garza.

Charging him might have a chilling effect on Texans who want to protect their property, they argued. McDonnell himself declined comment, citing the pending case.

Texas law gives some leeway to persons who believe they have been asked to protect the property of a third party, allowing the use of deadly force to prevent theft or criminal mischief, but the circumstances of McDonnell’s case differed considerably when described by police and his neighbor.

Converse police say McDonnell went too far when he chased the four down the street and blocked their way out with his vehicle. The four were charged with possession of drug paraphernalia, but not burglary. They told officers they were on their way to a party, according to a police report.

A Converse man who used his AR-15 rifle to detain four men he thought were going to burglarize his neighbor’s home last month now finds himself on the wrong side of the law.

Coty Bob McDonnell, 31, made his initial appearance Monday on a charge of deadly conduct, a misdemeanor, but the case was reset for next month.

Converse police arrested McDonnell on the night of Oct. 22 or early Oct. 23 after he detained the men, believing they were burglars, according to an account provided by his neighbor, Doug Stearns, and his lawyer, Daniel De La Garza.

Charging him might have a chilling effect on Texans who want to protect their property, they argued. McDonnell himself declined comment, citing the pending case.

Texas law gives some leeway to persons who believe they have been asked to protect the property of a third party, allowing the use of deadly force to prevent theft or criminal mischief, but the circumstances of McDonnell’s case differed considerably when described by police and his neighbor.

Converse police say McDonnell went too far when he chased the four down the street and blocked their way out with his vehicle. The four were charged with possession of drug paraphernalia, but not burglary. They told officers they were on their way to a party, according to a police report.

“These kids just stopped in the roadway to change drivers,” said Assistant Chief Rex Rheiner. “He pursued them, and when he pursued them down the road is when he left the realm of protection of property.

“He pointed the weapon at them,” Rheiner added. “He was out there acting as a police officer, when he has no police powers.”

Stearns, 51, an Air Force retiree, said he had asked McDonnell to keep an eye on his house while he was out of town and gave him a key. Their subdivision has had a rash of burglaries and recently saw a Converse school vandalized, he said. McDonnell even mowed his lawn and took care of his cat, Stearns said.

Stearns said McDonnell told him he had noticed a car coming down the street with its lights off and when it stopped near Stearns’ home, three men got out and approached or entered Stearns’ driveway. McDonnell grabbed his rifle and approached them and, “They said, ‘Oh (expletive), there’s somebody here,’” Stearns said.

McDonnell prevented the group from leaving in the car they arrived in, but had put away his weapon by the time police arrived, according to Stearns.

He called the prosecution a waste of time and money.

“I think it’s ridiculous,” Stearns said. “We should be able to protect our homes and do so in a way that doesn’t cause a loss of life.”

Most states don’t recognize the right to deadly force to prevent theft, but Texas does if I’m not mistaken.  So does Missuouri, to some lesser extent.

The police chief doesn’t really know how this all went down, since he wasn’t there.  I don’t know either, but there’s just something that tells me the founding fathers would have looked askance at the notion that a blue costume somehow grants powers that other men don’t have.

It seems to me that the real problem here is that the chief is offended that someone else out there sees himself empowered.  The chief would have defended until his dying breath the right of his officers to wield weapons at night in the presence of suspected thieves and detain anyone they deemed appropriate.

It’s the blue costume, folks.  It’s special.

I hope you enjoy Thanksgiving 2016 with family and friends and enjoy good times together.  I encourage you to ponder the things God has done for you.

I am thankful for my work, my children, my wife, the pleasures of life, the readers on this blog, and most of all, unmerited favor from God – His grace which saved me through Jesus Christ.  I am thankful to be called and numbered among His own people.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Military.com:

In a series of experiments this year, units from 2nd Marine Division will be silencing every element of an infantry battalion — from M4 rifles to .50 caliber machine guns.

The commanding general of 2nd Marine Division, Maj. Gen. John Love, described these plans during a speech to Marines at the Marine Corps Association Ground Dinner this month near Washington, D.C.

The proof-of-concept tests, he said, included Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines, which began an Integrated Training Exercise pre-deployment last month at Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms.

“What we’ve found so far is it revolutionizes the way we fight,” Love told Military.com. “It used to be a squad would be dispersed out over maybe 100 yards, so the squad leader couldn’t really communicate with the members at the far end because of all the noise of the weapons. Now they can actually just communicate, and be able to command and control and effectively direct those fires.”

Chief Warrant Officer 5 Christian Wade, the division’s gunner, or infantry weapons officer, said the Lima companies in two other battalions — 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, and 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines — now had silencers, or suppressors, on all their rifles, including the M27 infantry automatic rifles. All units are set to deploy in coming months. The combat engineer platoons that are attached to these units and will deploy with them will also carry suppressed weapons, he said.

Suppressors work by slowing the escape of propellant gases when a gun is fired, which drastically reduces the sound signature. Used by scout snipers and special operations troops to preserve their stealth, the devices are also valuable for their ability to minimize the chaos of battle, enabling not only better communication but also improved situational awareness and accuracy.

“It increases their ability to command and control, to coordinate with each other,” Wade told Military.com. “They shoot better, because they can focus more, and they get more discipline with their fire.”

Readers Joe and Jack sent this to me.  I have no difficulty in believing that suppressors have this kind of positive effect on small unit maneuver warfare tactics, techniques and procedures.  Anyone shooter knows that you either wear hearing protection, or you prepare for part of your pain to be sustaining the damage to your hearing.  I can only imagine attempting to control a small unit in warfare with this kind of noise.

My only caveat with this would be what this does to (1) muzzle velocity, and (2) barrel length.  Suppressors reduce muzzle velocity, but I don’t know how much this particular suppressor affects the M193 or M855.  Even a little reduction can cause a whole lot of ballistic differences, and that in itself may cause the need for another compensating change to small unit tactics.

Finally, as my former Marine tells me, heavy front end rifles are tiring and Marines looked for ways to reduce front end weight when they can.  Reduction in this case can only take the form of reduction of barrel length, which means yet another reduction in muzzle velocity.

Frankly, I see this as a positive move for the Marine Corps, but I’d like to see more data on this before jumping to any conclusions.  Wouldn’t you?

Performer Majestic Ape of Comet Ping Pong is performing to a crowd.  Listen for the following: ” … and little boys, and children.”

What’s her response again?

In Pizzagate (we’ll call it Pizzagate 1), I linked the subreddit on Pizzagate as being the front end of the work to turn over the skeletons in Pizzagate (4Chan being the source of much of the analysis, while Wikileaks is the origin of the source material that started this whole thing).

This subreddit has been deleted for alleged Doxxing.  I wish it wasn’t so because reddit is easy and fast to access, with good coding support when something goes wrong.  But the new home for the Pizzagate investigations is now https://voat.co/v/pizzagate.

It will take some time for full migration of users and adjustment of coding to handle the additional users.  Give it this time to mature.  In the mean time, I want to point out a few developments.

One of the entries that included a lot of links for your study can be found with the WayBack Machine.

Next, The NYT did an article allegedly debunking the whole notion of pizzagate, but I won’t link it here to send them traffic because it was worthless, with absolutely no factual content or research.  There were also many errors.  This is a migrated post that fisks the NYT article.  The fisk is conclusive and thorough, but I wanted to include one specific excerpt.

MISLEADING CHRONOLOGY: Kang commits a sleight-of-hand when she reports that Alefantis “looked online to unravel the accusations” right after he and his staff started receiving hate messages. Comet Ping Pong was first stumbled upon in the wee hours of November 4th. Alefantis’ instagram and Facebook accounts started getting threatening messages within hours from overzealous idiots on 4chan.

The Vigilant Citizen article that Kang cites was posted on November 15th, ELEVEN DAYS after Alefantis was first “exposed” on 4chan and reddit. Thus, there’s no way that Alefantis did a quick google search on November 4th and found the VC article.

If Kang had done a simple google search, she would’ve seen that on November 6th (within 48 hours of exposure), Washington City Paper published “Alt Right Conspiracy Theorists Obsess Over Comet Ping Pong”, featuring interviews with “Pizza Party Ben” and James Alefantis: http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/food/blog/20840980/alt-right-conspiracy-theorists-obsess-over-comet-ping-pong

All it takes for the article to be proven a lie is to find one major error such as this one.  But there are a lot more problems than this.

Thus the writer knew nothing when she wrote the article, and knows nothing now.  This NYT article is fake news.  That (Pizzagate is fake news rather than the idiotic debunking by the NYT) is what the MSM wants everyone to believe, it’s what the clan of criminals is trying to convince everyone to believe.

Yes, every man I know talks about handkerchiefs and pizza and the ages of children.  Yes, every family-oriented pizza parlor I know has drag shows.  Yes, every man I know posts pornographic pictures to Instagram.  Yes, every family-oriented pizza parlor I know has sadistic “artwork” on the walls, and every man I know hangs out with convicted child traffickers and pedophiles.

Um … no.  None of those things is true.  I don’t know anyone like that.

As a final note, I receive a lot of interesting traffic to this site, once from the executive office of the POTUS, once from the offices of the SCOTUS, many visits from military network domains (Army, DoD, Navy which includes Marines, etc.), State Department, Department of “Justice,” and on the list goes.  I got such hits when I covered rules of engagement and my son’s deployment, but I continue to and I’ve kept my original military and government readers, or I’ve lost them and added some more in their place.

Today I received one from the CIA.

So tell us why you’re here sir?  In fact, you and the NSA know all about these awful things and haven’t told anyone about the suffering children.  Such a thing might affect your comfy home in White Flint, or Bethesda.  Why don’t you drop me a line and tell me about it?  Doubtless, you know more than I do.  So why were you here?

Washington Examiner:

The Denver Sheriff Department will accept a penalty from the Department of Justice after a federal probe found it wrongly made U.S. citizenship a job requirement during a recent hiring spree.

The sheriff’s department — the biggest sheriff’s office in Colorado — will pay a $10,000 fine after it required applications for deputy sheriff jobs to be U.S. citizens when hiring from the beginning of 2015 through March 2016. The department went on a hiring spree of 200 deputies as part of its ongoing reform.

[ … ]

The Justice Department made the announcement on Monday, saying the sheriff’s department violated the Immigration and Nationality Act without having an exemption.

Because Isaiah 5:20.

Well hell.  Why don’t we just hire the North African Muslims terrorizing Europe to be Sheriff’s Deputies?  Oh wait.  I don’t want to give the Obama “justice department” any more ideas.

I found a lot of what Travis has to say in this video very helpful and useful.  I think you will too.