Mad As A Hatter

You've all heard the old expression "Mad as a hatter", and might have wondered what that means.  Quite simply, the manufacturers of hats once used mercury in the manufacture and manipulation of felt hats.  Mercury is, of course, quite toxic and the repeated exposure to the metal caused the hat maker to become quite mad.

When you look at a good, felt hat, you will notice that it has a leather sweatband, and at the back of the hatband is a little ribbon bow.  Many have wondered why that bow is there, and the history of it is sketchy.  Some say that originally it was a sizing device.  Indeed, it may have been a sizing apparatus.  Others say that the little bow was simply a device where the hatter could feel inside the hat and know where the center of the back of the hat was, so that he might correctly place the crease.  Others say that the bow was for the wearer, so that the bow would go in the back, preventing the embarrassment of wearing the hat backwards.

The most intriguing story I've heard is that the little bow is a stylized representation of the skull- and-crossbones symbol for danger.  It reminds the hatter that his is a dangerous profession and pays tribute to those who went before in the making of hats.

And now you know as much about that little bow as I do.  If you've heard any other explanations, please shed some light in comments.

The Panic

Gun shows and buying frenzies.  Tam talks about the lack of panic at a recent gun show.

We've seen panics over the past years.  We've been through them, we know how they work.  She notices that nobody is buying much.

It's been a great decade for gun manufacturers, but as Jeff Cooper so famously remarked; "I have mine."  And, maybe that's the key to the conundrum.  The gun industry has changed a bit over the past decade.  It used to be that we'd go to a gun show to see new things, and get a good deal.  Nowadays good deals are everywhere.

I still cruise pawn shops and second-hand shops looking for a good deal, but if it's something I want new in box, I'm just as apt to order it online.  It arrives in a week, I go by the FFL to do the paperwork, and everyone is happy.

Heh!

Seen today on the Book of Face.

I wouldn't doubt it for a minute.

Piling On

Fox News is reporting that the very politicians who praised James Comey for his impartiality are now denigrating him for his Friday afternoon revelations that the FBI is re-opening the Hillary probe.

For Democrats singing his praises just months ago, FBI Director James Comey is no longer the paragon of impartiality.

The bureau boss is now the target of barbed Democratic attacks for his decision to notify lawmakers Friday that investigators were reviewing newly discovered emails related to the Hillary Clinton server case. And some of the same Democrats who over the summer defended Comey in the face of Republican pressure have emerged as his toughest critics.

That's one problem with this whole investigation, which I have entitled Comey's Disgrace.  He went public too early and too often.  In July, he announced that he wouldn't recommend prosecution, and now in late October, he had enough evidence to re-open the investigation.

No one with a lick of sense believes that the probe will be finished before next Tuesday, when the whole nation gets to weigh in on who might be the next president. It's a problem.

Some of us are old enough to remember the Watergate Scandal that drove Richard Nixon out of office.  You might recall that the scandal came to light in October of '72, Nixon was re-elected in November of '72, but wasn't forced to resign until August of '74.  The entirety of his second term was consumed by the investigation and the leaks that came out as the investigation progressed.

There is a cautionary tale there and Comey should learn from it.  The big thing to remember, though, is that this isn't Comey's fault.  This is Hillary's fault.  She chose to do the crime and cover it up.

The Hits Just Keep A-Coming

After the shoot this weekend, I looked at some news sites yesterday, and was amused at the revelations described by the various news outlets.  For those of you just catching up, it seems that the FBI, while investigating the pedophilic activities of long-time Democrat Anthony Weiner, stumbled across a batch of emails in an electronic folder belonging to his wife, Huma Abedin.  Huma, of course, is a close aide to career criminal Hillary Clinton.

Jim Comey, the embattled FBI Director, sent a letter to Congress.

The Democrats immediately went ape-shit crazy.

The FBI got a new warrant to look at the emails in that folder, rumored to be something in the neighborhood of 650,000 files.  Some of those are probabkly duplicates, but it is a staggering amount of emails that directely relate to the Clinton homebrew server and the Clinton Crime Family activities.

It seems that the immunity agreements that the various players got under the earlier investigation have now "gone south".  If law enforcement can make the case using new evidence that is  found in another location, all bets are off and everyone can go to prison.  650,000 emails is a lot to sift through, but the FBI has found a gold-mine of incriminating evidence.

David Burge summed it up best. "FBI finds 650k Hillary State Dept emails on PC of notorious dickpic pervert. Headlines: "Comey Embroiled in Controversy"

Regardless of what the Democrats say, we should remember that this whole brouhaha is Hillary's fault.  She did it, against the advice of everyone (and often in violation of the law).  This entire monkey-circus was solely for her convenience.  Somebody should have told her no.

Craftsmanship

My son is a metal-worker and his wife is a graphic artist.  They've blended their two crafts into one product that is reaaly cool.  They've done some limited commercial applications, for events, and we think that it's just cooler than all-get-out.

Those double-insulated steel tumblers that are all the rage these days.  The two of them have come up with a way to etch the tumbler, to personalize it.  Wife makes a stencil in negavite, hubby applies it to the tumbler, then blasts it in his sand-blast cabinet.  The result is a blasted finish on the cup that won't wear off.  We think it's really attractive and personalizes the cup.

Here's one that they did for Blue Eyed Belle.  That tumbler is a 30 oz RTIC, but they can do any of them.

I think that looks pretty darned great.  Don't you?

The Silsbee Shoot

Belle and I along with Akarate Zach, Cajun Greg and Squirrel traveled to Silsbee TX yesterday to shoot with the Big Thicket Bushwackers.  We had a great time visiting with dozens of gunfighters from all over the state.

I'm still editing pictures, but we have a few notable snaps.

Blue Eyed Belle, in steampunk attire, prepares to engage a small reactive target

We started the match with "fun" shoots, unlike the traditional, scored CFDA match.  It almost resembled a USPSA shoot, with multiple targets and different stages.

Pixie Quick engages a target.

This shoot was a Halloween celebration, and I'll have pictures of costumes later in the week, but some of the costumes were very inventive indeed.  When you combine Halloween, Steampunk, and Cowboy shooting, there is no telling what will show up on the line.

Plain Jane engages a balloon target.  Plain Jane is the reigning national champion of Cowboy Fast Draw

That little balloon target is a challenge.  It causes a whole different set of priorities, because if the balloon doesn't pop, you don't get a score.

Gentleman GGeorge showing his stuff.  If I'm not mistaken, he won this particular match.

All in all, a great shoot.  It was challenging, informative, a whole lot of fun.  As always the Big Thicket Bushwackers outdid themselves provideing hospitality to a bunch of traveling gunfighters.

One last picture.  Major D, and Blue Eyed Belle.  Ain't Belle's hat something?

Breaking! FBI To Look Into Clinton Emails

NBC News broke the story today, and Fox News is reporting that the FBI will continue to look into Clinton's emails.

The FBI language in the letter to Congress makes clear that new evidence has been discovered and thus will be reviewed — meaning FBI agents will read these emails. It is unusual for the FBI to tell Congress it is looking over newly discovered evidence in a criminal inquiry that was otherwise closed.

It looks as if the continuing Wikileaks revelations is doing the job that Comey didn't want to do. This may be a case of "too-little-too-late",   The election is only ten days away, and early voting has started damned near everywhere.

I'm sure that FBI Director Comey has been reading PawPaw's House and the thorough revulsion that an old cop has been outlining against him.  Maybe he decided to try and salvage the tatters of his reputation. He's too late, it's completely shredded. Comey is going to have egg on his face when he has to arrest the president-elect for multiple felonies.

The Assange revelations have shown that the Clinton mob is a corrupt organization, amenable to the RICO statutes.  If Comey is smart, he'll keep his yap shut until he puts his case together, but the first thing he needs to do is to pull the passports of all the principals in the investigation.  We don't want them trying to flee the country when the indictments come down.

**UPDATE** It seems that the FBI found some stuff when they searched electronic devices seized as part of the Anthony Weiner investigation.  You may recall that Anthony Weiner is the husband of Huma Abedin, a close aide to Hillary.  So, as part of the Weiner investigation, they found new stuff?

That's it, irony is officially dead in 2016.

Shakedown

In the past several days we're learning more from the Wikileaks dumps that have occurred over the past several weeks.  Instapundit says that if Hillary wins, her presidency will be tainted from Day One.  He links to a John Fund article over at National Review that says, in part:

Ordinarily, the IRS and other government authorities take much smaller transgressions seriously. Democratic representative Corinne Brown (Fla.) is currently under federal indictment for far less serious transgressions involving a foundation she controlled.

This is yet another example of Comey's Disgrace.  Corinne Brown is "under indictment for far less serious trangressions" yet Hillary is still campaigning.  How exactly is that not a two-tiered justice system?  But I digress.  The more important question will be; Who is she beholden to if she is elected?

Should Hillary Clinton become president, she will drag the country into yet another national nightmare over her ethics and the ethics of the Clinton Foundation. Who knows what else will be belatedly revealed should she win the White House? Whatever it is, it’s not likely to be pretty or enable her to command the respect of the American people or leaders abroad when she makes tough decisions.

To answer the last paragraph, Hillary will never command my respect.  Over the last several months, it's become pretty clear that she has earned no respect, that she's a felon, that she is probably running a corrupt organization, and that she deserves to be prosecuted. I can't believe that there is not an active RICO investigation,  but we know who is running the FBI.

Just Damn!  Even the Boston Herald is making the case.

Another thing I wouldn’t want to do is have to write a life insurance policy for Doug Band. In case you haven’t been paying much attention to the inner workings of the Clinton Foundation as detailed in the WikiLeaks dumps, Doug Band’s role is summed up nicely in this headline from the L.A. Times:
“An aide says he once arranged for $50 million in payments for Bill Clinton.”

But that's not the kicker.

Fifty million! And now it’s all laid out, in public documents, by Doug Band himself. Far, far beyond a reasonable doubt, if you want to get technical about it. Even James Comey could make this case — but he wants to keep breathing, too.

Heh!

Spook Shoot

In CFDA, the World's competition normally signals the end of that years competition season.  World's is held the first weekend in October every year, but that doesn't mean that the clubs quit shooting, or holding matches.  The autumn and winter mark the time for invitational shoots.  A club will decide to hold a shoot, send out the information, and folks come to participate in the event.

Tomorrow, the Big Thicket Bushwackers are holding an invitational shoot to celebrate Halloween in their particular style.

Seven of us from Thorn Valley will be traveling to the shoot.  Because Silsbee is about three hours from our home range, Belle and I will make it a day trip.  We'll leave before daylight Saturday morning and return after sunset.    I'll make sure to put a camera in the car, and we'll have plenty of pictures to look at.

In two weeks, my home club, Thorn Valley Shootist Society, is hosting our invitational and we'll talk more about that as we get closer to that date.

Outlier?

Interesting poll put up today by UPI.  It shows Trump very competitive in the electoral college.  There are some states listed there as battleground states that I wouldn't have considered.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- Donald Trump would earn enough votes to win the presidency in the Electoral College based on UPI/CVoter's state tracking poll released Monday.
Trump would amass 292 votes and Clinton would get 246 with 270 needed to secure the oval office.
But the candidates' leads are narrow enough -- 5 percent or less -- in 12 states to classify them as swing states, meaning 156 electoral votes could be up for grabs.

With the nature of this race changing daily, and the perception that the media is in the tank for Hillary, it's an interesting analysis.  Whether it's an outlier or not we'll have to wait another two weeks to see who is right, and who is wrong.

New Life for the 'Hawg

It seems that the Air Force isn't mothballing the A-10 aircraft.  At least not right away.

On paper, the Air Force plans to start mothballing the A-10 in 2018, with the last Warthogs sent to the boneyard by 2021. But last month Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James said that the retirement of the A-10 would likely have to be delayed further as the military continues to rely on the low-and-slow attack plane for close-air support (CAS) missions flown against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. Even more telling, the Air Force Material Command (AFMC) is bringing the depot line for A-10 maintenance and repair back up to full capacity, according to Aviation Week.

Ain't that interesting.  Evidently the low-and-slow aircraft still have a mission.  That's great news for ground-pounders.

Air Force maintainers are also preparing to replace the wings of the A-10 fleet, tapping a $2 billion contract originally awarded to Boeing in 2007, which was intended at the time to keep the fleet flying until 2028. Some corrosion of the planes has been seen at the depots, but Pawlikowski says this is to be expected, especially on an aircraft that has been in service since 1977.

Great news for the old war-horse.  If you've never stood underneath an A-10 while it made a run on targets downrange, you many never understand what a comfort it is to troops on the line.

Bill Clinton's Sleaze

When the Clintons have lost MSNBC, then there is trouble in the ranks.



Seventeen minutes of explaining the sleaze that has become the Clinton Foundation, and Bill Clinton, Inc.

My big question, though, is:  Is the FBI aware of this and doesn't this break laws?  I know that lots of sleaze is not against the law, but public corruption on this scale is bound to be a problem, not only ethically, but legally.

Hillary: False Prophet

Taking the high road this morning, we turn to Reason magazine, where we read an article by Shikha Dalmia.  She explains that Hillary is a false prophet to feminists.

The conundrum for feminists is that if they ask Clinton to reconcile her actions and positions, they risk exposing her hypocrisy and making her vulnerable in the face of an intolerable alternative. But if they don't, they end up undermining their own credibility and effectiveness. They can't even acknowledge that Clinton cannot use the bully pulpit to make sexual assault a big issue of her presidency. Most men would have been able to do more if they chose.

That's a problem as I see it.  And, it's a problem that strong women see through.  Hillary Clinton is a hypocrite on feminism, as she is on most issues.  Her public positions never track with her private positions.

I don't pretend to understand feminism as it exists today.  Truly, I don't.  I know that they're really pissed at Trump, but then they have to hold their noses when they talk about Bill Clinton.

 Indeed, there is no denying that one reason Trump is getting away with his sexual misconduct is because her husband, whom she enabled, got away with his.

Aye, and there is the rub.  Hillary is still married to Bill, and Bill is a man who is well known for a sleazy treatment of women.  Milady and I were discussinng this topic just last week.  Milady is convinced that Hillary has no self-respect because she has stayed with Bill.  In Milady's mind, no self-respecting woman would put up with that type of nonsense.

Donald Trump, or Hillary Clinton.  This is the election we have.  I do have to agree with Ms. Dalmia on one point, though.

Still, Clinton's victory will be no victory for feminism. In fact, it would have been far better for the movement if she had lost to a good man rather than won against a bad one.

Indeed.  Feminists should have considered that possibility early in the primaries and adjusted their voting choices.

Stolen Valor

From Fox News this morning, we get this heart-warming tale of a guy who lied to the court about his military service.

A Pennsylvania man who pretended to be a decorated ex-Marine sniper so he'd receive less time for theft and weapons crimes is now getting more prison time.

Lying about your service is never a good idea, but lyinng to a Court might be the worst possible idea.

 Shane Sperow, 43, was sentenced Tuesday to 21 months to five years in state prison, beyond the six to 23 months he's serving for a simple assault conviction, The Reading Eagle reported.

Evidently, the Court didn't believe his story, and had it double-checked.

 Sperow received three months to two years in prison for lying about his military record, and 18 months to three years in prison for the other crimes. He will spend a total of 21 months to five years in state prison, according to the report.

Heh!  Good for him.

Tam Goes A-Training

Training is a wonderful thing, and I recommend it to everyone.  It makes you think about things that you might not otherwise think about, and it makes you think about stuff that you could have done better.

Her post this morning talks about one scenario that went "pear-shaped" (her words) in the aftermath of a shooting scenario.  So, let's look at it, shall we?

Guy in the plaid shirt walked up on our hero (in white) and said "Hey, you gotta phone? I need your phone. Gimme your phone and your wallet."
Our hero drew and the bad guy stopped, arms out to his side, and asked  "What're you gonna do? Shoot me?" He must've twitched the wrong way, because the good guy promptly did.
It was at that point that things went pear-shaped with the arrival of the Good Samaritan bystander who immediately started Samaritan-ing the wrong dude: "Hey, man! You just shot this guy!" Good Guy tries to explain what happened, while not letting Samaritan get too close. Samaritan interprets Good Guy's refusal to let him get close as being a sketchy guilty dude trying to get away.
Good Samaritan decides he's going to play hero and detain Good Guy for the cops. A tussle for the gun erupts, likely because of Good Guy's understandable reluctance to shoot Good Samaritan, and so Good Samaritan ends up stabbed fuckity-eleven times in the retention fight for the gun. It was ugly.

It often is ugly, but I have a few observations.

Plaid Shirt Guy was obviously about to commit a robbery.  I don't know what he did to have Good Guy bust a cap in him, but that's not a problem, as long as Good Guy can explain later.  I can think of a half-dozen different explanations for popping Plaid Shirt Guy.

But, Good Samaritan is sketchy.  In my experience, when someone pops a cap on a city street, the next thing you hear is the flap-flap-flap of feet running down the street.   Good Samaritan isn't going to hang around unless he has an attachment to Plaid Shirt Guy.   It just ain't gonna happen.

So, if Good Guy, having shot Plaid Shirt Guy, is approached by Good Samaritan,   Good Samaritan says "You just shot this guy ".

Good Guy should reply, "Yes I did, and now I'm calling the cops."  Good Guy's motivation should be to get the cavalry rolling as fast as possible so that he can tell his side of the story.

This is where the story really gets weird.  Good Samaritan decides to detain Good Guy, and goes for the gun.  Somehow,  a fracas evolves where Good Samaritan gets cut repeatedly.  That's not a good deal for anyone, especially for Good Samaritan, who should have butted-out when the gunsmoke was still hanging in the air.  I am impressed that Good Guy had a knife.  I'm a big fan of carrying a knife and a gun.

And, here is an important point:  If you're going to carry a shank, it should be carried on your off-side, and be available for one-handed use.  If someone is trying to get your holstered pistol, you want to be able to secure the pistol with your gun-side arm/hand/body, while you go to work with the knife that you can use in the other hand.

I'm sure that Tam will tell us the rest of the story.  In my mind, Good Samaritan is sketchy and Good Guy should have already made the call to the police.

But, I'm sure that she'll explain it all in future installments.

Bob Hoover - RIP

The aviation world lost a giant today.  Bob Hoover passed away at age 94.

I never knew him, but I knew of him.  A legendary pilot, he flew during and after World War II.  From his wiki page.

During World War II, Hoover was sent to Casablanca where his first major assignment was test flying the assembled aircraft ready for service. He was later assigned to the Spitfire-equipped 52d Fighter Group in Sicily. In 1944, on his 59th mission, his malfunctioning Mark V Spitfire was shot down by a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 off the coast of Southern France and he was taken prisoner. He spent 16 months at the German prison camp Stalag Luft 1 in Barth, Germany.

 Hoover managed to escape from the prison camp by stealing a Fw 190, and flew to safety in the Netherlands.

He stole a plane from the Jerrys and flew it to a safe runway.  Proably laughing his ass off the whole time.

Where do we find men like that?

Can Hillary Deny It?

The right-side internet is abuzz with a potentially (not really) video that James O'Keefe released, showing that Hillary Clinton is in serious violation of Federal Election Commission (FEC) law.

James O’Keefe takes you through the basics of illegal campaign coordination in the clip. Do note that Bob Creamer himself seems to understand that something untoward is being admitted when he tells the undercover investigator that Hillary is all-in on the sub-moronic “Donald ducks” idea — and then quickly urges him not to mention that elsewhere. Also note: This isn’t the first time recently that the Clinton campaign has been accused of coordination. A complaint has already been filed against them with the FEC alleging that they’re cooperating illegally with David Brock’s outfit Correct The Record. There are also questions regarding their relationship with the Clinton Super PAC Priorities USA.

The big question, though - can Hillary deny it?

 “Person after person after person is saying ‘this is all Hillary’s idea.’ So, Hillary… it’s going to be fascinating to watch,” O’Keefe concluded. “Because I don’t think she can lie about this. I don’t think she can deny it.”

Well, of course she can deny it.  Hillary can deny anything, and no one is going to hold her accountable.  If she wins, do you think that anyone is going to hold a sitting president accountable for a little matter of violating the election code?  Certainly not Jim Comey.  He's proven that he's incapable of indicting a major, elite, government official.  To his eternal disgrace, he's just exactly who Hillary needs in that position.

Pondering the Im-Ponderable.

I'm jus' sayin'.

Hat tip, the Lonely Libertarian.

Gunfighters

Blue Eyed Belle and I are staunch supporters of Cowboy Fast Draw, and all it represents.  We believe that it's a lot of fun, and we believe that (apart from the fun), the education that it provides is invaluable to any type of shooting.  With a motto of "Safety First, Fun Second, Competition Third" the organization captures the idea that we can be safe, be friendly, and have fun while competing at at high level of competition.

Yesterday in a boot store, I had finished my purchases to find Belle looking at belt buckles.  I asked her playfully if she were buying bling, and she told me that the buckle on her trousers belt sometimes got in the way of the buckle on her gun belt.  Belle is a tiny little gal, about 5'2', and 110 pounds sopping wet. Gun belt fit is important, so I simply nodded my head.

The sales lady, Peggy, happened to overhear the comment and asked "Gun belt?"

Belle, studying the merchandise, remarked over her shoulder.  "Yeah, we're gunfighters."

"Gunfighters?" Peggy asked.  "Seriously?"

"Yep." Belle made her selection. "We travel the country getting into gunfights."

Belle and Peggy started talking about shooting, and Cowboy Fast Draw, and our Youth program, and the travel, and the fun, and the equipment, and Belle sent me out to the car for brochures.  Peggy said that she'd put the brochures on the bulletin board, and if anyone asked, she'd give them one of the extras.

This weekend, we're traveling to Silsbee, TX for a shoot, and in two weeks, we're hosting our invitational match.  For the next three weeks, Belle and I will be in full CFDA mode.

Calibration Error?

It seems that when you vote in Illinois, if you vote for a Republican, the machine records your vote for a Democrat.

Republican state representative candidate Jim Moynihan went to vote Monday at the Schaumburg Public Library.

“I tried to cast a vote for myself and instead it cast the vote for my opponent,” Moynihan said. “You could imagine my surprise as the same thing happened with a number of races when I tried to vote for a Republican and the machine registered a vote for a Democrat.”

The conservative website Illinois Review reported that “While using a touch screen voting machine in Schaumburg, Moynihan voted for several races on the ballot, only to find that whenever he voted for a Republican candidate, the machine registered the vote for a Democrat in the same race. He notified the election judge at his polling place and demonstrated that it continued to cast a vote for the opposing candidate’s party. Moynihan was eventually allowed to vote for Republican candidates, including his own race.

We hear over and over again that voter fraud never happens, yet when we try to vote, it records a Democratic vote.

“This was a calibration error of the touch-screen on the machine,” Scalzitti said. “When Mr. Moynihan used the touch-screen, it improperly assigned his votes due to improper calibration.”

Calibration error, my ass.  It was calibrated to record Dem votes regardless of the intent of the voter.

The guy responsible for calibrating this machine should be serving a federal prison sentence.  This is unconscionable, which is just about what I expect from Democrats.

With this sort of bullshit going on, Trump is right to not accept the result of any elecion, unless he wins it.

Silver Belly

Men's hats are made from the fur of beasts.  Normally rabbit, or beaver or some other fur-bearing animal.  This fur is made into felt and is fashioned into hats.  The quality of the fur, and the quality of the felt is graded in Xs.  The more Xs, the better the quality of the hat.

When I was a kid, our Sheriff's deputies wore a hat described as a "Silver Belly, 3X Stetson", a classic cowboy hat with a cattleman's brim.  Of course, today, Stetson isn't Stetson.  Neither is Resistol.  Once pround stand-alone companies, they're both owned by Hatco, out of Garland, TX.

Regardless, a good hat is a joy, and I had wanted a Silver Belly hat for a while.  Today, we walked into Boot Barn, a big retailer with a box store across the river.  Blue Eyed Belle was looking for a pair of boots for Zach.  It seems that 14 year old boys outgrow boots, and his toes were curling under.  Grandma decided the boy needed new boots, so I tagged along.

I"ve got a big old round head, and I was looking at hats, so the gal asked me what I was looking for.

"A Silver Belly, about a 5X in a 7 1/2 or 7 5/8" I replied.  Normally, they'll dig around, look at a bunch of hats, then tell me that they don't have any in stock.  It keeps me from buying hats, if they don't have what I'm looking for in stock.

I was considerably surprised when the gal, Peggy,  came out with a hat that met my specs.  It is marked as a Cody James hat, a house brand of Boot Barn, but a quick comparison showed that it's probably made by Hatco.  So, I put it on, and it fit.

So, the old man finally has a Silver Belly hat.  I think it looks good, and I've got a piece of large hat sabers from Cav-Hooah to put on it.

Oh!  Did I mention that Zach was looking for boots?  About the time that Peggy found my hat, I wandered back to the boot racks and Zach had picked out a pair of boots.

 Very patriotic, don't you think?  That's the ones he picked out, and his grandma took them up to the register.  It's not like we spoil that boy or anything.

New Shooter

It's always great to introduce a new shooter to the sport, and we got to introduce one today.  He's not technically a new shooter, but he comes out of southern Mississippi to try his hand at the game.  He's an old soldier and currently an NRA firearms instructor.  We showed him how it was done, gave him a safety briefing, and turned him loose on the targets.  For his first time out, I believe that he did pretty well.



Blue Eyed Belle hit a personal best today, a 0.794.  Give Belle a round of applause, and welcome Dallas to the CFDA family.  I'm pretty sure that by the November shoot, he'll have an alias, a CFDA card, and we'll help him get equipped and teach him to hand-judge.

The Integrity of the Vote

Who remembers the election of 2000?  You remember, the one where the entire nation was treated to a discussion of hanging chads and shadow dimples in Florida while the nation waited to learn who was going to be our next President?  The election that wound up in the Supreme Court?  Yeah, that one.  I remember it clearly.  I was dating a gal who was a Gore supporter, and I was, of course, a Bush supporter.  She and I broke up in December, and no, it wasn't over the election.  But, that election is fixed in my memory for other reasons.

The next month I met Milady, the love of my life, at a Super Bowl party, and my life changed for the better.  But, I still remember the 2000 presidential election, and all voters should remember it.

I also recall a local race in a small Louisiana parish during the '90s.  It was for a local judgeship as I recall and as the ballots were counted, it became apparent that the votes were absolutely tied.  One vote mattered, but still, the votes were tied.  That election went to the courts as well, and it became clear during the hearings that each the local registrar of voters had been overwhelmed with registrants and had not completely vetted each voter.

Let's shift gears for a minute.  On July 4th, the day before Comey's Disgrace, Townhall published an article entitled You Owe Them Nothing - Not Respect, Not Loyalty, Not Obedience.  This was, of course, the day before Jim Comey went on national television and gave us stark proof that Hillary had violated multiple laws and even starker proof that he had sold his integrity and the integrity of the FBI.  I bookmarked it because I thought that I might use it later, and today is later.

There is one law for them, and another for us. Sanctuary cities? Obama’s immigration orders? If you conservatives can play by the rules and pass your laws, then we liberals will just not enforce them. You don’t get the benefit of the laws you like. We get the benefit of the ones we do, though. Not you. Too bad, rubes.

So if you are still obeying the law when you don’t absolutely have to, when there isn’t some government enforcer with a gun lurking right there to make you, aren’t you kind of a sucker?

Lots of people are in hysterics because Trump has said that he might not accept the results of the election, but I think that he's giving voice to the unspoken masses.  We've seen local elections come down to one or two votes and we know that the presidency isn't a nationwide election, but a series of statewide races.  We also know that thousands of illegal aliens in places like Pennsylvania and Virginia.

If it's close, and the election comes down to hanging chads (or the digital counterpart) in states where lots of aliens are voting, then Trump, and the rest of us, have every reason to not accept the legitimacy of the election.  Because we owe them nothing.  Not loyalty, not respect, not allegiance.

Hillary's Toddlers

While I wasn't paying attention, it looks like Hillary Clinton descended into the realm of the farcical during the debate.  The woman understand nothing about guns, understand little about the law, and exposes her ignorance on both subjects when she tries to combine them.

“What the District of Columbia was trying to do was to protect toddlers from guns,” the Democratic candidate said about the decision in District of Columbia v. Heller.

 “So they wanted people with guns to safely store them, and the court didn’t accept that reasonable regulation. But they’ve accepted many others, so I see no conflict between saving people’s lives and defending the Second Amendment,” Mrs. Clinton said.

Her ignorance is appalling.  Heller wan't about toddlers.  No where in any of the opinions, concurring or dissenting, do we find that they addressed toddlers at all. That's what the gun-banners do; when they're losing the argument, they make things up out of whole cloth.

The Winchester Revolver

Turning our eyes away from the depressing news cycle, we look toward more interesting topics, and as I normally do, I look for shooty goodness.  Today, we learn of a revolver that we never suspected that it even existed.  The Winchester revolver, Model of 1883.

As seen at They Made All Kinds.

I had never heard of a Winchester revolver, but the linked article claims that this one was made by Winchester prior to a gentlemen's agreement between Colt and Winchester.

Supposedly a 1884 meeting between Winchester and Colt, where Winchester showed Colt the new Winchester designed revolver and shortly after that both companies agreed to non-compete with each other, however they reserved the right to design and produced prototypes for patent work development. This "gentleman's agreement" has since been maintained with each company staying out of the other's respective sector of the firearms market.”

I had heard other stories and read claims that Winchester and Colt had agreed to stay within their respective market niches .

Lethal Force

We go over to Tam's site and read about a police officer in New York who had to use lethal force against a woman wielding a baseball bat.

A sergeant entered the seventh-floor apartment and encountered the woman, who was armed with scissors, but he persuaded her to put them down, Nikunen said.

 So far, so good.  She put down the scissors.  Then things go south.

The woman grabbed a baseball bat and attempted to strike the sergeant, Nikunen said. The officer fired two shots, striking the woman in the torso, he said. She died of her injuries after being taken to Jacobi Medical Center.

Aw, hell.  Using a baseball bat is lethal force.  The officer responded with lethal force, and from the facts presented so far in the story, it appears to be reasonable.  Based on everything I've learned from 35 years as an officer, under existing case law, the officer did what he had to do.  It is regrettable,  as are all fatalities, but not improper.

The usual suspects are upset that the woman died.  But back to Tam's analysis, I can't disagree with her reasoning.

Look, y'all, if you see someone swinging a baseball bat at me and I'm not already shooting them, I'd be much obliged if you'd get to shooting them for me. I don't care if they're 16 or 66 or what bathroom they use or if they're white or black or a sort of tie-dyed color.

That's pretty much the way I feel.  A baseball bat is lethal force.

The Forgotten Voter

John Podhoretz writes an article over at Commentary Magazine, where he talks about the truly forgotten Republican voter.  The whole piece is worth the read, but he reveals the reasoning of a voter who is truly horrified at Trump's mid-October misogyny.

Like many reasonable, rational voters, I was also horrified at the revelations made in mid-October about the Republican candidate.  Podhoretz talks about one disaffected conservative, a woman named Glenn, who excoriated the Republicans in a series of tweets, and he condensed it thus:

It is not just the Republican Party but the conservative movement that has alienated her: “Various men in  the movement are writing it off as normal, confirming every stereotype the left has thrown at them. So I’m done…. And when it’s all said and done, all you’ll have left is the party The Left always accused you of being.”

I can empathize with her disillusionment.  Many of us are disillusioned. At the beginning of the primary season, I was interested, intrigued with the choices available to us.  A rich crowd of candidates, with differing viewpoints and opinions.  Trump captured a sizable portion of the electorate from the beginning,  I would have happily supported Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio, or perhaps even Jeb Bush (although I detest political dynasties).  But, Trump seemed to capture the support of a large group of people who were tired of the same-old, same-old crop of pretenders.

On the Democratic side, we had Bernie Sanders, an avowed Socialist (who got rich being a socialist) and Hillary Clinton.  Ms. Clinton is, of course, the wife of a serial sex offender, a man who was impeached in office for lying about sexual improprieties.  We shouldn't, of course, visit the sins of Bill upon Hillary, but we note for the record (as my wife so recently brought up), but for the fact that she defended him and is still married to him.

Hillary herself, removed from the sins of her husband, is known for being power-hungry, elite, arrogant, and demonstrably criminal.Were it not for Comey's Disgrace, she would probably be indicted right now for a veritable litany of federal crimes.

If Trump is deplorable, Hillary is despicable.  And that leaves Mr. Podhoretz's forgotten voter with a horrible choice.  There are people who are horrified at the idea of a Trump presidency, but absolutely terrified of a Hillary presidency.  Apocalyptic fantasies are sprouting up everywhere.

Podhoretz tries to explain how the Democrats view Republicans.  It's an interesting view, and I hope that he's wrong.

Many Democrats and liberals, and most activist Democrats and liberals, do not understand this about Republicans and conservatives and do not accept it. They have always seen conservatism as “naked villainy with odd old ends stolen out of holy writ.”

 They believe that if you believe differently from them, you are seeking to do active harm to the country and to others and to humanity, because the policies you support are solely to your benefit. They believe you only want tax cuts and deregulation to enrich yourself, not because you want to free the economy from the government’s heavy and confiscatory hand. They believe you support efforts to prevent voter fraud not because you believe organized efforts have been made to steal elections but because you want to steal elections. And, most important, they believe you support a traditionalist view of life not because you believe it is the deepest reflection of natural law or God’s truth but because you want to privilege males and heterosexuals and seek to disempower women and those who pursue what used to be called “alternative lifestyles.”

If that's how Democrats view Republicans, then they need to get out more.  I, like many Republicans believe in less government, more freedom, less taxes, more private charity.  We believe that love is the answer, but that you should have a gun, just in case.  We believe that honest elections are in the best interest of the Republic, but that we should be vigilant to protect against fraud.

We believe that government has no money except what it takes from The People, and we don't really care what kind of "alternative lifestyle" you pursue, as long as you keep your hand out of my pocket.

I am the forgotten voter that Podhoretz laments, yet I don't hold the apocalyptic views of the lettered elite.  I believe deeply in several things.  I believe that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life, and that He will take care of His people.   I believe that government is not the answer, but is often the problem.  I believe in the basic goodness of people, but understand that there is evil in the world.

So, for me, the choice is clear.  Donald trump might be deplorable, but Hillary is despicable.  There is evil in this world and the Clinton family represents the worst of it.

The choice is horrible, but there it is.

GOP offices Firebombed, Vandalized

You may have seen the news earlier this week about a North Carolina GOP office that was firebombed.  To their eternal credit, a bunch of good-hearted Democrats started a fund to repair the office.  Yeah, I know.  Good-hearted Democrat sounds like an oxymoron, but it's not.  There are a few.

This morning we learn of an Indiana GOP office that was damaged by the age-old expedient of throwing a brick through a window.  And no, I'm not blaming Democrats in this incident, although it's safe to assume that the vandals were not Trump supporters.  The local Sheriff reports that there are plenty of complaints of campaign signs being stolen from residents yards.

Delaware County Sheriff Ray Dudley said that there have been numerous reports of campaign signs being stolen from yards in Yorktown and Mount Pleasant Township, according to Fox 59.

With twenty days left till the election, I suppose that this sort of activity, as deplorable as it is, is bound to happen.

What I've found interesting, locally, is the dearth of yard signs I see in the local area.  In a local campaign, the yards fill up with signs.  They sprout like spider lilies, but this year, the yards are fairly vacant.  Interesting.

Policy Proposals

Now, this I like.  From Fox News:

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Tuesday called for sweeping Washington reform including term limits for congressional lawmakers, telling supporters “it’s time to drain the swamp.”

I've been waiting for something like this for a couple of weeks.  Quit complaining and lay out some solid proposals.

 Under Trump's proposal, members of the House of Representatives would serve a maximum of six years, while Senators would be limited to 12 years in office.

He wants to re-institute a ban to prevent Executive Branch officials from lobbying the government for five years after they leave government service and to ensure the ban cannot be lifted by executive order. 

 Trump also wants Congress to institute its own five-year lobby ban for members and their staff.

And he wants to close “loopholes” that he says allow former congressional and Executive Branch officials to lobby while calling themselves consultants and advisers.

Trump is also calling for a lifetime ban on senior Executive Branch officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government and for Congress to pass campaign-finance reform to keep registered foreign lobbyists from raising money in U.S. elections.

It took him long enough to "get off the pot", but those are policy proposals I can get behind.

We know that Hillary represents the established Washington status quo.  It's time for Trump to realize that he's in a race and lay out policy proposals that We The People can get behind.  As much as I like my Congressman, I think that Congressional term limits are a good idea.  I've also long believed that lobbyists should be drawn, quartered, and hung on the steps of Congress.  (okay, that may be a little extreme, but you get my point.)

Voter Fraud

We're hearing a lot about voter fraud these days, mainly that it never happens.

But if it never happens, why is it so easy to get evidence that it's happening?



I've seen some strange things in small-town electoral politics, and I've seen local politicos brought down over vote-buying.  It happens.  Maybe not on a large enough scale to throw a national election, but certainly on a scale large enough to affect a Sheriff's race.  And yes, during the 1990s I was involved in a vote-buying investigation that got a local Sheriff convicted.  I'm not going to call his name, but I remember it.  (Hell, everybody in that area remembers it).

Vote fraud happens, trust me.  I've seen it.  Others uncover evidence of it fairly regularly.  Anyone who says it doesn't happen is either being obtuse, or disingenuous, or both.

Voter fraud is why voter ID laws are so important.  It doesn't stop it completely, but it certainly makes it harder to stuff a ballot box.

Fact Checking

Hat tip to Old NFO, and I'm going to leave this here so that we can find it later.

Hillary likes the Australian example, and thinks that it is worth considering.  Those are her words.  Worth Considering.

When all the spin is over, when it's all said and done, Hillary Clinton wants your guns.  It doesn't matter if you're a hunter, a collector, a recreational shooter, a Cowboy Fast Draw, or IPSC, or USPSA or SASS shooter.  Nor yet a skeet, trap, or sporting clays shooter.  Hillary wants your guns.

It doesn't matter that she's protected by the very guns, every day, that she wants to ban.  No, that doesn't matter at all.  If she gets her semi-auto ban, do you think that her protective detail is going to switch over to revolvers?  If she bans the modern sporting rifle, do you think her protective squad is going to switch over to lever rifles?  Oh, no, she's proven that she is above the law.  Much to Comey's disgrace, she now truly believes that the law doesn't apply to her or her staff.  Hillary ca do whatever-the-hell she wants to do, and

But, if you really want to know what Hillary thinks about guns, don't believe her campaign spin.  Listen to her words.



That should tell you everything that you need to know.  Hillary thinks that the Australian example is worth considering.

Comey's Disgrace

Jim Comey may be the most reviled director that the FBI has ever had.  Though I didn't realize it at the time, it appears that he's simply a political hack.  He's never been a cop, nor an investigator, nor a Special Agent with the bureau.  According to his Wiki page, he was a Deputy Attorney General for two years and a US Attorney for two years.  He's a lawyer, appointed by Obama to run the FBI.  

So much for his much-vaunted straight-shooter reputation.

As regular readers know, his July 5th whitewash of Clinton led many of us to sit stunned as the detailed her criminality, then failed to recommend prosecution.  

The fallout continues.  It appears that many senior agents in the FBI describe Comey as a hack. 

This is a big development. This means there are some great, traditional, honest people inside the FBI and DOJ who will not let this stand. They know that Comey is a dirty cop and they are disgusted. Inside the bureau I had a meeting today with a senior former FBI agent who told me this exact story. That people are starting to talk. They’re calling their former friends outside the bureau asking for help. We were asked, today, to provide legal representation for people inside the bureau and we agreed to do so. And, to former agents who want to come forward to talk.

 A Daily Caller article gets a little more blunt.

“Comey was never an investigator or special agent. The special agents are trained investigators and they are insulted that Comey included them in ‘collective we’ statements in his testimony to imply that the SAs agreed that there was nothing there to prosecute,” the second agent said. “All the trained investigators agree that there is a lot to prosecuted but he stood in the way.”

There you have it.  Comey stood in the way of the investigation.  At some point, a "reasonable prosecutor" might have to convene a grand jury and look at obstruction charges against Comey.

Thou Doth Protest Too Much

The title is, of course, a classic quote from Shakepeare's Hamlet.

My Daddy always had a saying: "If you throw a rock into a crowd, the fellow you hit is going to holler."

It appears that the media is outraged over a purported Wikileaks that reveals a direct collusion between the Democratic National Committee and the mainstream media.

This should come as no surprise to anyone.  Ed Driscoll is all over it.

C'mon.  A simple Google search for DNC-MSM will give you 400K hits in under a second.

It's so obvious, we shouldn't even have to bring is up, but as Instapundit says: THINK OF THEM AS DEMOCRATIC PARTY OPERATIVES WITH BYLINES AND YOU WON’T GO FAR WRONG

We can find lots of opinion about what the Republicans need to do after a Trump loss, but nary a word about how the Democrats need to rebuild after nominating a known criminal.

Methinks that the MSM doth protest too much, or as Dad used to say, when you throw a rock into a crowd, the fellow you hit will holler.   In this case, the whole crowd is hollering.  It kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it?

GOP Headquarters Firebombed.

It appears that a local GOP Headquarters in a staunch blue North Carolina community was firebombed.

“The firebombing of a local political headquarters in Orange County is clearly an attack on our democracy,” McCrory said in a statement. “Violence has no place in our society – but especially in our elections. … I will use every resource as governor to assist local authorities in this investigation.”

 I'll withhold judgement on the perpetrators until the investigation is complete, but I will note for the record that if this was a Black Lives Matter HQ, or a NAACP field office, the Justice Department would already have called this a hate crime and sent a team down to investigate.

But, it's just a Republican headquarters so we can't really expect the DOJ to care.  As of this writing, we have no comment from AG Lynch.

Doubles!

One of the side matches we do sometimes in Cowboy Fast Draw is doubles.  Hitting two targets quick.  Some folks like to use two revolvers, but that's a lot harder than it looks, and missing a target incurs a fairly substantial penalty that is added to your time.

So, some shoot two revolvers, some shoot one revolver and try to get on both targets as quick as they can.  Yesterday, at Thorn Valley, we were practicing, and someone said Doubles.  So we marked a line at 15 feet and set up to practice.

Grandson Zach believes in the one-gun school of thought, so he set up to hit one target fast, then swing on the other one.  Zach is 14 years old, but a seasoned competitor.



That ain't bad for hitting two with a single action revolver.  It's not as fast as some of the SASS guys, but they practice this a lot more.

The Podesta Emails: The Fix Was In

Just an hour or so after I posted about the divide currently in America, a friend led me to this article in National Review.

For the parties to prove such culpable conduct on the president’s part in a high-profile criminal trial would have been profoundly embarrassing to him, to say the least. Therefore, it was never going to happen. As I’ve noted before, after exclaiming, “How is that not classified?” upon being shown an Obama-Clinton e-mail by the FBI, Hillary’s confidant Huma Abedin asked agents if she could have a copy of the exchange. She obviously realized that if Obama had been communicating on Clinton’s non-secure server system, no one else who had done so was going to be prosecuted for it.

The fix was in the minute that Comey discovered Obama using the Clinton private server.  Comey had neither the balls or the inclination to accuse both Obama and Hillary of multiple felonies that violate national security laws.

Comey is both a coward, and an active participant in this cover-up.

I Feel A Storm Brewing

You know that feeling that some of us get in our joints before a weather change?  That uneasy, totally non-scientific, feeling that some folks get before a storm?  Yeah, that one.  I'm feeling something, not in the weather above my head, but in the politics of this nation.  There's a storm a'brewing.

Hillary is supposed to complain about the hacks to her emails.  (The irony is strong in this one.)  She thinks that there is some conspiracy between Donald Trump and Vlad Putin to sink her campaign.

Some of the more vocal Trump supporters have lost all faith in the system we use.  A tiny minority is even suggesting a coup if Hillary is elected. To be fair, Trump himself has decried the call for violence after the election.

Americans on both sides are losing faith in the way we elect a president.

It doesn't help that this is the weirdest election season I've ever seen or followed.  The Republican candidate is a loose cannon.  The Democratic nominee is demonstrably criminal.  They're both bad for America, but in starkly different ways.  We're going through a national revulsion on a huge scale.

The Obama presidency has been horrible for America, unless you are one of the political or corpoarte elite, you're probably worse off than you were eight years ago.  His legacy is a shambles, a list of failure on both the domestic side and the foreign side.  Racial relations have slid back forty years, and those of us who remember the race riots of the '60s are forced to re-live them.

For the first time in my lifetime, I don't trust the Supreme Court.  Regular readers know my contempt for Justice Roberts.  Both the IRS nd the FBI have been weaponized to serve the current political masters.  In the past eight years we've made some progress in expanding freedom, but in many ways, freedom has been constricted as well.  New regulations are strangling small business and the overall strength of the government has grown to the point where many find it better to close their doors than continue to provide services that Americans need.

The divide between rural and urban Americans is growing.

America needs a reset, and it needs it quickly.  This election may be a tipping point.  I pray that it is decided at the voting booth.  I also pray that whatever the outcome, the winner is mindful that fully half the electorate is against him or her and that the loser is magnanimous enough to go quietly away.

America needs a unifying president, and I don't see either one of these nominees as capable of unifying the country.

Macular Degeneration

I've got it.  Macular degeneration, a disease of the retina.  I've known about it for four months.

This past summer, I realized that I was having trouble seeing.  I've worn glasses since junior high, and figured (it had been four years) that I needed a new prescription.  The optometrist found some macular degeneration and sent me to a specialist.  A very good specialist, approved my Milady (who is a very good RN).  He confirmed the diagnosis, put me on a regimen and told me he'd see me in four months.

That was today.  I've halted the degeneration, and actually gained a little bit in my right eye.  The good news is that I haven't lost any ground.  The specialist told me that there are some medicines in the early testing phases that are showing good results on animals.  He said that human trials are several years off, but he holds hope, if not for me, than for future patients.

The very best news is my right eye.  That's my dominant eye, the one that I shoot with.  It's showing better vision than it did four months ago.  The combination of the regimen and a new eyeglass prescription means that I can see the front sight on a pistol, or rifle.  For a life-long shooter, that is very good news.

I'm stoked, and it's Friday.  Y'all have a great weekend.

Wikileaks - The Hits Keep on Coming.

Why is John Podesta talking about "wet works"?

"Wet Works' is an aphorism for assassination.  He says that he knows it's not a pol party at the Vineyard.

This election season keeps getting curiouser and curiouser.

They Made All Kinds

The title is a take-off from a blog of almost the same name.  It features obscure firearms from the past.  Yesterday,they talked about the Springfield Model 1869 pistol.  A trapdoor design, quite an oddity.

The article says:

“Right after the Civil War Springfield Armory made eight (8) single shot 50/70 trapdoor pistols for US Cavalry officers for use in the Indian Wars. These guns were originally cavalry carbines that the factory modified the stocks, barrel, sights, etc and turned them into pistols.” 

A .50-70 Trapdoor pistol?  With that curved grip, I bet that the recoil was interesting.

Notes From Thursday

I see that the Washington Post has endorsed a known criminal for President of the United States.

What happens to the GOP if Trump loses?   Short answer; Nothing.  The GOP is accustomed to losing presidential elections.  That's why we call them The Stupid Party.

Current and former FBI agents think that Comey is a crook.

Comey thought this was going to go away. It is not. People inside the  are furious. They are embarrassed. They feel they are being led by a hack. But, more than that, they think he’s a crook. They think he’s fundamentally dishonest. They have no confidence in him. The bureau, inside, right now… is a mess.

So, what are they going to do about it?  If I were a career FBI agent, with the assistance of a principled DOJ attorney, I'd convene a grand jury and put Comey under oath.   With all we've learned since Comey's 7/5 presser, I believe that a principled prosecutor could make a case for Obstruction of Justice.

Doing some googling, I learn that I'm the first Google link for "Comey's Disgrace."  Cool.

It looks like the naval activities are getting kind'a sporty off Yemen.  Go Navy!

More on Comey's Disgrace

It looks like there are problems in the FBI.  One of those problems was that lots of agents and trial lawyers on the Hillary investigation were stunned when Comey decided to not prosecute.  Fox News reports:

The source, who spoke to FoxNews.com on the condition of anonymity, said FBI Director James Comey’s dramatic July 5 announcement that he would not recommend to the Attorney General’s office that the former secretary of state be charged left members of the investigative team dismayed and disgusted. More than 100 FBI agents and analysts worked around the clock with six attorneys from the DOJ’s National Security Division, Counter Espionage Section, to investigate the case.

“No trial level attorney agreed, no agent working the case agreed, with the decision not to prosecute -- it was a top-down decision,” said the source, whose identity and role in the case has been verified by FoxNews.com.

Go to the link and read the whole thing.  It's a stunning indictment of a political coverup that damages the integrity of the FBI.

It's looking more and more like Comey sold out.  Plainly sold his integrity.  I hope he got a golden parachute, because if I ever get the chance, I'm going to piss on his shoes and tell him that it's raining.

Media Bias? What Media Bias?

By now, even the most unaware citizen knows of Trump's trash-talking.

But how about the video of Obama wagging his willy at female reporters?

Media bias?  Not at all.

Oh, and while everyone is focused on the election, our President's foreign policy is in shambles.  Russia is telling it's elite to bring their students back home.  The Mideast is a catastrophe.  Russia seems to be gambling on something, and we're not sure what that might be.  As Wretchard explains:

Either way there's trouble in Russia, little ducks. But unlike the super-submarine USS Alabama in the movie, the USS District of Columbia can't dive and can't change course.  No evasive action.  All it can do is proceed on a fixed heading on the surface, rudder jammed, dead slow, condition XRAY.

Our lame-duck semi-retired president may well get us into a real shooting war before he leaves office.

Your Standard Redneck

Bill Clinton, (bless his heart) thinks that he can denigrate Trump supporters by calling them rednecks.



You see, I don't take that as an insult.  The rednecks I know are hard-working, family-loving, God-fearing, school-supporting, community-volunteering types who want to raise their families, work at their jobs, and live free.  Rednecks are salt of the earth people who hunt, fish, shoot, trap, and don't want to bother anyone.

Bill Clinton, on the other hand, is a woman-abusing, skirt-chasing, influence-peddling, career politician.  If he didn't have Secret Service protection, he'd probably be getting his ass whipped fairly regularly.

He must feel pretty confident about Hillary's chances if he can afford to insult the working class.  What an asshole.

Disparate Treatment

Oh, look, here's a guy who did exactly what Hillary Clinton did.

Last week, a person was arrested for allegedly having classified documents at home without authorization. No, it wasn’t Hillary Clinton—but it makes you wonder, why not?

The article goes on to detail why this set of facts is almost exactly like Hillary's set of facts.  Hillary is running for the presidency.  Others are going to jail.

 The FBI and the DOJ are left in the untenable situation going forward of either letting go other people that are reckless with national security secrets, or violating the rule of equality under the law by charging people differently based on the same set of facts. Either way, our country is in a significantly worse place today than before Hillary Clinton’s reckless protection of our national security secrets.

Indeed.

That Comment

We all heard it during the debate on Sunday, where Donald Trump interrupted Hillary Clinton to tell her that she'd be in jail.  Here's the clip, if you missed it.



Of course, the left immediately bent this into a slam on Trump, comparing him to a potential dictator who would jail political opponents.  But, that's not what the rest of us heard.  Of course, here in the United States we don't jail political opponents.  There are hard-fought races all over the country, and when it's over, and the voters have spoken, the winners take office and the losers go back to their private lives.  That's how we do it in the United States.

But, Hillary is a criminal.  Seriously, there are people in prison right now who did the same things that Hillary is accused of.  As we learn more about the still-born FBI investigation that I now call Comey's Disgrace,  Were she not running for the presidency, she might well be prosecuted.

No less a conservative icon than Newt Gingrinch makes the same point at The Blaze.

“Hillary Clinton herself is so corrupt that we really need to handle it as a criminal justice matter, not just a campaign matter,” he said. “I thought, in many ways, that was the most important conversation starter of the whole evening.”

 Gingrinch is right, which is why the FBI should be a non-political, bipartisan, absolutely independent agency that has the confidence of the American people.  Unfortunately, Comey has squandered that confidence.  The revelations keep coming about immunity deals, destruction of evidence, destruction of federal records, obstruction of justice, the hits just keep on coming.

Gingrich is right.  This is the conversation we should be having.  The perception right now is that powerful politicians get a pass from the system.  Unpunished corruption is yet another facet of a totalitarian government that we should not tolerate.

But, what's most mind-blowing is that there are Americans who are going to vote for her.  Probably the most corrupt career politician of my lifetime, and she stands a good chance of becoming President.

The Bane Drill

Over at Shooting Illustrated, We find an article by Ed Head, talking about something he calls the Bane Drill.  It's a simple name for an old-time practice, shooting at longer distances.  Basically, we should be able to make a head shot at 25 yards and a body shot at 50 yards.

Nowadays, most folks train at considerably shorter distances.  We all know that most gunfights are short-range affairs, but the simple fact is that not all of them are.  Sometimes the target is appreciably longer than the standard 7-yard distance.  When I was working in a high school as the resource officer, I knew the distances of all my hallways, in case (God Forbid) I had to engage a threat down the hallway, I had a pretty good idea of the distances from one spot to the next.  The longest hallway at that school was 110 yards.  That's a long way to shoot a handgun if you've never tried it, so I got a bunch of standard B-27 targets and started learning to shoot the pistol at those ranges.

Handgun hunters practice this type shooting regularly, but most concealed carriers don't spend much time shooting on the longer ranges.  It's an excuse to get out of your comfort zone and try something new.

Even is you don't have a standard target, a paper plate would suffice,  Use a 6" plate at 25 yards and a larger 9" plate at 50 yards.  Use a good, supported firing position, find a handy table, or use a tree.  Maybe drop to one knee in the supported kneeling position, or even go prone.  Do what it takes to put the rounds on the target. Five rounds each should suffice, and hike downrange to see how you've done.  In this, as in all things, practice makes perfect.  You might learn something about your shooting skills that will pay benefits in other ways.  For example, sight-alignment and trigger squeeze become even more important at longer distances.

It's an interesting drill, and I recommend it to all serious pistol shooters.

Scrounging

I'm an inveterate scrounger, always looking for something that I need for free, rather than for money.  A while back I was looking for lexan poly carbonate, and I asked a friend who happens to own a glass shop what he had laying around.

Well, he didn't, but he told me that he'd keep his eye open, and a couple of months later he called me back.  He had been changing the poly windows in a big piece of John Deere machinery, the poly on the cab, and he asked if I wanted the old windows.

Well, yeah, so I drove over to see.  Great googly moogly, three big pieces of poly, heavy stuff.  I took them gratefully and put them in the truck, to cut up later for target glass like we use inn Cowboy Fast Draw.  Whereas the specs call for 3/8 poly, this stuff mic's out at 0.475, almost a half inch.  That should be sufficient for my purposes.  Today, I got out a good carbide blade and tried curring it on the table saw.  Easy-peassy, and in just a few minutes I had a dozen pieces of target lexan.

The picture doesn't show it, but this stuff is tinted John Deere green.  That shouldn't affect the light transmission to any degree that we'll be able to see.  All told, I made about a dozen, and I have plenty of lexan fo several dozen more.

Thanks, Mike.

Rethinking This Weekend

This past weekend, we saw an attack on Trump, from what we have to assume are surrogates from the Hillary campaign.  We assume that she approved the attack simply because if she didn't approve it, the attack would not have gone forward.

I've just read Scott Adams blog post, and I tend to agree with him.  The media is in the bag for Hillary, they only give Trump coverage because they are forced to because he is the "anti-Hillary".

I assume that publication of this recording was okayed by the Clinton campaign. And if not, the public will assume so anyway. That opens the door for Trump to attack in a proportionate way. No more mister-nice-guy. Gloves are off. Nothing is out of bounds. It is fair to assume that Bill and Hillary are about to experience the worst weeks of their lives. 

Adams goes on to posit that Hillary may have picked the wrong battle with the wrong opponent.  Trump is not known for backing down in a fight, and if Hillary wants to make the next 30 days about marital fidelity and locker-room talk, she might want to check her own husband before she lets her attack dogs loose.

  If nothing new happens between now and election day, Clinton wins. The odds of nothing new happening in that timeframe is exactly zero.

Trump showed up at the debate last night with some of the women that Bill Clinton sexually abused. I bet Hillary was totally amused at that little detail.

None of this was Trump's idea.  Hillary brought the scandal to light, but it's now Trumps to capitalize on.

Yemeni Mohametans Target US Destroyer

Multiple new agencies are reporting that a US Navy destroyer was fired upon by Yemeni Mohametans.

The US Navy destroyer USS Mason came under fire by two missiles off the coast of Yemen in the early evening hours Sunday.

Of course, the Mohametans didn't hit the ship.  From reports, didn't even come close, but as I recall my earlier history lessons, and briefings from my military career, firing on a flagged vessel was normally considered an actof war, and retaliation would be swift and brutal.  So, I'm sure that our valiant sailors aboard the Mason took care of business and wiped out a couple of Yemeni grid-squares.

Oh, wait.  This is Ray Mabus' Navy.  Of course they didn't retaliate.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source said the incident was now under investigation.
"We take this very seriously," the official said. "We will protect our people."

It looks like you take it seriously.  The only investigation you should be doing is a battlefield damage assessment  Teddy Roosevelt is rolling in his grave.

Sunday Lunch

When I was growing up, the family gathered at my grandfather's house for Sunday lunch.  I remember sitting around a big, oval table after church, listening to the adults talk, while we all ate lunch together.  Some of my favorite memories are of times I spent in my grandmother's kitchen.

Several years ago, Milady and I began hosting the Sunday lunch.  Everyone is invited, and we always cook plenty.  We always feed ten to twenty people, depending on who shows up, so the meal has to be fairly easy, fairly economical, and very filling.  We've become quite adept at easy meals, and todays is no exception.  With temps in the 50s, we felt a need for a hearty, savory, comfort food, and Beef Tips fills the bill.  The fact that it's very easy is also part of the appeal, at least for the cooks.

This is another one of our "overnight slow-cooker" meals.  We put it on last night before bedtime, and with coffee this morning, the kitchen smells like heaven.  The beef is bubbling in the pot, and Milady's yeast rolls are rising.

So, today, it's beef tips.  The recipe is right here.

Y'all have a great Sunday.  It looks like it's going to be a magnificent day, and I intend to enjoy it.

Saturday Morning

Yesterday, Milady and I went to a local church rodeo at the invitation of several folks.  They asked us to dress in period and strap up to show off Cowboy Fast Draw.  So, we went to the rodeo.  In cowboy attire, with our revolvers strapped to our hips, and talked to folks, handed out flyers, and let people see us.  We watched young'uns wrangle sheep, we watched teens bend poles, we saw other teens barrel-race.

For the couple of hours we were there, it was really nice to be in the company of good folks, enjoying a Friday night together in a rodeo arena.  This was a small-community rodeo.  No big prizes, no pressure, just folks enjoying the evening, with horses and children, and everyone cheering on everyone else.

In gun-friendly Louisiana, no one blinked an eye at a mature couple, walking around with revolvers on their hips.  We did generate some curiosity about Cowboy Fast Draw, and we'll see if it turns into any real interest.  We plan to return, and maybe do some demonstrations, maybe even a Town Folk Alley.

Woke this morning to temps in the 60's and a nice breeze out of the north.  A long-sleeved cotton shirt feels just right.  Milady and I are going to the club later, to try and enjoy this beautiful Saturday.

Go Ahead, Sergei

These two Russian guys are fishing with a hand grenade.  It turns out about like you'd expect.

This is why I don't like hand grenades.  Because some five second fuses burn down in three seconds.



Of all the stuff I worked with in the Army, I disliked hand grenades the whole time.  So much pain in such a little package.  These bozos are lucky they're not both dead.

Soak the Taxpayer

Would someone explain to me why taxpayers are expected to pony up money to pay for football stadiums that the NFL wants to use?  I know that the state of Louisiana built the Superdome for the Saints, and now it looks like the state of Nevada is considering a new stadium.

Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) on Wednesday said he will call the legislature into session to consider using state money for the new stadium, along with separate measures to deal with an expected budget shortfall and education funding.

It seems to me that if Nevada has a budget shortfall and education problems, iti should be pouring its money into those things before it builds a stadium.  Don't bother telling me that if the state builds the stadium, the stadium will bring in outside money in the form of hotel rooms, restaurant revenue..  If the NFL built the stadium with its own money, the hotels would still fill up, the restaurants would be busy.  The state doesn't need to get involved with that.  If the NFL's business model relys on public stadiums, then it is a poor business model.  Perhaps they should start paying the players less to create controversy.  I'm nust sayin'.

Personally, I don't watch much football.  I particularly don't give a crap about the NFL. Inn my mind, they're a bunch of overpaid prima-donnas playing a child's game.  I do like high school and college ball, and I may watch a part of tthe Super Bowl, but in the main, I believe NFL ball to be a big yawner.

And, I don't see why taxpayers should be involved in it at all.