Friday Tour d’Horizon, Week 43

This week’s Tour d’Horizon is upon us. Too many tabs, too little time.

Guns

I don’t wanna work, I just wanna bang on my gun all day.

Colt Empties a Corner

An area where they used to do something else is stripped to the industrial parquet floor. Why? Ah, says Colt in tones like Number Two, the Interim Number One: “That would be telling!”

“We cleared out the space… but what’s going here? Stay Tuned. 2017 is going to be exciting.”

Colt new products can be hard to get hold of, but 2016 has seen not just the return of the Delta Elite (well tested at looserounds.com), but the race-ready Colt Competition Pistol, the 1911 Rail Gun, and “the Colt Combat Unit™ carbine featuring Colt’s first production mid-length gas system,” they proudly announced last week (and that we featured on Wednesday).

German Space Age Stocks

Now this CQR Stock from HERA GmbH (Highgrade European Research for small Arms) may be an acquired taste…

We acquired the image via TFB, the product is not yet on the company’s European website or their US importer’s. They even have a CA-legal version, doesn’t fold and the triangular area behind the grip is filled with a flat plate. They also make rails and other accessories.

Coming soon to a low-budget sci-fi flick in your local metroplex….

American Space Age Stocks

This stock looks a lot like the HERA.

To an even greater extent than the somewhat Hollywood HERA, it looks Hollywood (which is not a term of approbation in SF). It’s more syled than designed.

That’s not surprising, because it’s reportedly a collaboration between Chris Ha and Hollywood artist Vitaly Bulgarov. There doesn’t appear to be any physical product at this time, just rendering. They say sometime in 2017, which we guess makes it officially vaporware. There’s an even more vaporous CA/NJ compliant version promised.

Usage and Employment

The hardware takes you only half way. The wetware in your brain housing group is what makes your weapons work. 

The Effective Range of a Restraining Order is Zero Meters, #34621

Instead of issuing a warrant for a stalking estranged husband’s arrest, an Indiana judge summonsed him for Monday. Over the weekend, Anthony Russell committed “gun violence,” as the ban groups call it, by killing himself. After killing Laura Russell brutally — by slashing her to ribbons with a knife.

She went to the cops, she went to the judge. The judge says, “Sorry ’bout that,” now. She should have gone to the gun shop.

If you’re a woman, the delta between your strength and the average guy’s is more than you think. Since you’re probably not an exception to the first law of relationships, to wit, “Chicks Dig Jerks,” get a gun and learn to shoot it.

Cops ‘n’ Crims

Cops bein’ cops, crims bein’ crims. The endless Tom and Jerry show of crime and (sometimes instantaneous) punishment. This week, we have a local ‘Shire bias in the stories.

The Cop Was a Crim, ‘Shire Edition

David Burris, 37, was a probation-parole officer last year. (He might still be: the department is keeping mum about his status). But this year, he has other problems, notably an indictment.

Burris, 37, of Pembroke is facing three felony counts of reckless conduct for shooting at a car driven by Andrew Holmes outside of a Raymond home on the night of Dec. 1.

Prosecutors say that Burris fired his weapon three times at a moving car driven by Holmes.

Holmes wound up arrested on an unrelated warrant. Police and prosecutors (from an adjacent county to mitigate conflicts of interest) have said very little about the case, but Burris could get 3½ to 7 years on each felony “reckless conduct” charge.

Standoff Leaders Acquitted

To the surprise of everyone, including the defense attorneys and the judge, the jury in the trial of seven leaders of a quixotic lands protest, including brothers Ammon and Ryan Bundy, returned “not guilty” verdicts. The seven and others had occupied a seasonally disused shack at an Eastern Oregon wildlife refuge as, as near as we can figure out, a protest against Federal lands policy.

The government had been so confident a Portland jury would convict the seven that there were no plan or provisions for releasing them if acquitted. The judge, Anna Brown, angrily announced that Ammon Bundy, at least, would not be released, because he awaits another trial in Nevada. Bundy’s attorney, Marcus Mumford, began yelling at the judge at that point, and she had him beaten, tased, and arrested.

Cops (in this case, US Marshals), as we have frequently said, will do what they’re ordered to do.

The case may have failed at the very end, when US Attorney Billy J. Williams had prosecutors display the firearms the protesters had, suggesting that firearms possession was proof of criminality.

…finishing with a display of more than 30 guns seized after the standoff. An FBI agent testified that 16,636 live rounds and nearly 1,700 spent casings were found.

There was, in fact, nothing unlawful about the guns per se, and suggesting that they were makes one wonder if Williams badly misread his own handpicked entirely urban, largely liberal jury, and misread more general American attitudes about firearms.

A very wide range of outcomes stalked the protestors. Bundy associate LaVoy Finicum was shot dead when this group were taken into custody in a road ambush, and numerous smaller fish have pled guilty to various Federal charges and been sentenced to long terms in Federal prisons. Some more small fry remain to be tried.

Mother of the Year Nominee

The competition is always fierce, but here’s another nominee for Mother of the Year.

Prosecutors on Thursday brought new felony charges against Deborah Deslongchamps, who was ordered held on $250,000 cash bail at her video arraignment in Derry (NH) circuit court.

Yikes! What’d she do?

Deslongchamps, 45, faces two counts of attempted murder and one count of first-degree assault.

The new charges are in addition to the original felony charges of reckless conduct and false imprisonment and one misdemeanor count of endangering the welfare of a child.

Yikes, but what’d she do?

The charges accuse Deslongchamps of attempting to commit first-degree murder by holding the firearm to her daughter’s head at one point and firing toward her inside their Candia home.

Police said the shot was fired as her daughter was escaping the house through a side door. The door was struck, but her daughter wasn’t injured.

Deslongchamps is also accused of firing another shot inside the house.

The story reports that she’s been suffering from mental health issues for years, and is battling “a mental health crisis”.

Well, why in the name of Niffleheim is she not locked up in a room with neoprene wallpaper?

You Have to Love a Headline Like this:

Arsonist Charged with Kidnapping.

The guy had been released from a token eight-month dip in prison for the arsons. So why call him an arsonist? Is it “burn one building (and two cars) and you’re an ‘arsonist’ for life? Or is it that the paper can’t call a kidnapper a kidnapper until the conviction (or plea) comes in?

That makes us wonder if the criminal justice community will ever embrace a logical sentencing proposal, like 10-20-Life. This guy would have been out of circulation at the time of this crime! But anyway, here’s what he did this time:

Jason Clairmont, 38, formerly of Gilmanton and Laconia, is charged with beating a man on June 24 in Clairmont’s apartment on Ormand Street, breaking his arm, then forced the alleged victim into his truck and left him in Chichester.

Concord Lt. Tim O’Malley said Clairmont faces a single charge of second-degree assault, a single charge of kidnapping, two counts of simple assault, one count of felony criminal threatening and one count of obstruction of the reporting of a crime.

He said the alleged victim was found on the side of the road by Chichester Police and that it appeared the altercation between him and Clairmont was over money.

Doesn’t really seem like a dispute resolution method used among nature’s noblemen, but what do we know? In any event, some dudes just need to be locked up.  And yes, that is our answer for everything. (He is locked up, for now. The DOC has not yet revoked his parole on the arsons, but then, he hasn’t made bail on the kidnapping and assault, either).

It’s Not “Play Rasslin’” When She Says Stop

So this guy is some kind of minor-league pro wrestler, a low-brow entertainment thing that is even more fake than the rest of pro sports. And he seems to have missed the message in the way that even fake wrestling organizes athletes into weight classes.

Terrance Jean-Jacques, 24… faces charges of assault, battery, kidnapping, witness intimidation, destruction of property and threatening to commit a crime.

We love that one, “threatening to commit a crime.” That jurisdiction — he was in court in Haverhill, Massachusetts — must not have a penalty for “mopery with intent to lurk.”

What did he did? Apparently he had a somewhat physical argument with an on-again, off-again girlfriend/baby-momma. It couldn’t have been too physical, because he’s a 230-lb gorilla and she wasn’t hurt. She doesn’t appear willing to testify against him, but they can prosecute him on the statement she gave cops the night of. (This is pretty common, actually). The whole thing makes the pair of them look like they add up to one average IQ. And yes, they’ve already reproduced.

Holy crap, Idiocracy was a documentary.

It Isn’t Always the Police K-9 That Gets You

The bum in the selfie is one Raúl Natareno, a genius who thought it was a bright idea to do a home invasion on his drug dealer with a couple of buddies. The buddies were caught immediately, but Raúl almost got away, hiding in a shed. Until the homeowner’s dog elected himself K-9 Auxiliary.

The intense land-and-air search put the Village on the Lamprey neighborhood and other nearby residents on edge, but in the end it was a 9-year-old beagle named Lucky who smelled trouble in her backyard and gave police the break they needed.

The Barbosas said Lucky was inside the house when she began barking around 3:30 p.m., more than two hours after the search began.
As soon they opened the door to the back deck to let her out, Lucky made a mad dash toward their backyard shed.

Lucky was happy just to observe and report; the pros took it from there. Fine job of community policing, and Raúl is where all armed robbers need to go, stoner or not: crowbar motel.

What can you say except, “Good dog!”

(Update: something you normally only see in Hollywood, but it really happened at least once: the rip crew in this case was a white guy, a black guy, and a hispanic guy. Most criminals associate primarily with same-race criminals).

Saving the Taxpayers’ Money

Some people would criticize Veronique Henry for killing herself. But as the career criminal faced dual murder, robbery and conspiracy charges along with her husband Paul, she should probably be celebrated for saving the taxpayers a lot of money.

The Henrys fatally shot Foday Cheeks, 31, and Danielle Taylor, 26, before ordering two other women and two boys, aged 12 and 14 years old, to hand over their cell phones and keep their heads down, according to investigators.

The couple then asked where the drugs were stashed and searched all over the house, police said. They left without finding any, telling the witnesses they would shoot them if they moved from their spot on the floor, according to the state police.

Arrested soon after, the couple were locked up, and Veronique took her own life within 24 hours.

Sure, it’s hard on the corrections officers who had to clean her cell up after she hanged herself, but it’s a multilevel win for the taxpayers. Now if only her husband will follow suit….

Every Headline Stresses “Former Soldier” and “Terrorism”

Its part of the media depiction of soldiers and veterans as damaged goods. The former soldier’s name, one that seems to come up more than you’d expect in terrorism cases: “Mohamed.” He’s an immigrant and naturalized citizen, just planning the attacks native Americans won’t do. A supporter of fundamentalist mohammedanism and follower of Anwar al-Awlaki, Mo had joined the National Guard, in which he rose to the exalted rank of private, and does not seem to have attended much training before being U’d out for nonattendance at drills.

The Perils of Kathleen: If it’s not good-bye yet, it’s not good

There’s really one major Kane story this week: Monday she was sentenced to 10-23 months in state pen. (Which is not the same as Penn State). Of course, she got a deal you wouldn’t get: not only could she have caught 28 years, she gets to stay out on token bail pending appeal.

A key factor in her sentence appears to have been her post-conviction preening, announcing she “had no regrets.” Lesson to all you future defendants out there, let your lawyers do your talking until the rubble is done bouncing, or it may bite you, as it has Kane, in the wrinkly old hind end.

• Item 28 Oct: Kathleen Kane goes from rising star to fallen star. “[S]he became her own worst enemy.” Analysis: true.
• Item 28 Oct: Kane and Her Kid. She not only put on the crocodile tears to try to stay out of jail, she put one of her kids, a 15-year-old son, on the stand. Tough. If she loved her kids, she’d have thought twice about them before she embarked on a life of crime.
• Item 25 Oct: Prison Officials Ready To Welcome Kathleen Kane If Appeal Fails. “Her new address will be 60 Eagleville Road, Eagleville, Pennsylvania.She was here briefly last night, before her family could raise her $75,000 bond.”
• Item 24 Oct: Insult To Injury: Kane Gets Slapped With Prison Time, Then Parking Ticket. Reporter Dan Majka seems to feel sorry for her for getting the ticket. But really, parking illegally when you’re going in to your felony sentencing kind of illustrates what the whole problem is with this woman — and gun control proponents in general.
• Item 24 Oct: Kathleen Kane, Former Pennsylvania Attorney General, Is Sentenced to Prison. New York Times.
  
  Item 24 Oct: Former PA Attorney General Kathleen Kane gets prison term. CNN.
• Item 24 Oct: Kane’s Day of Reckoning. Update — “Despite plea for leniency, Kane gets 10 to 23 months in jail.” Hell. That was leniency.

We wrote last week: “Anything short of prison is disloyalty to the people of Pennsylvania, but a walk-out-of-court seems to be what the Establishment is queueing up for one of its own.” Well, it looks like she got prison and walked out of court. Still we have to commend judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy. Hyphenated name and all, she didn’t let a fellow liberal walk all over the laws of her state. Now let’s see if the appeals courts have similar spine.

• Item 28 Oct: in the one non-sentence story this week, a Friday news dump revealed that one of the attorneys Kane fired in a “loyalty purge” has been rehired, with a $160k cash settlement for his unlawful firing. This one and six other lawsuits by purge victims have cost Pennsylvania taxpayers three-quarters of a million dollars in settlements alone, plus uncounted legal fees.

Unconventional (and current) Warfare

What goes on in the battlezones of the world — and preparation of the future battlefields.

Poly-Ticks: Who Loves Ya, Baby?

Not the probable next President, if you’re a military man. Or a dog. According to Deroy Murdock:

“I’m not voting for Clinton,” Air Force Staff Sergeant Eric Bonner posted on Facebook in July. “It’s because she actually talked to me once. Almost a sentence,” wrote the Air Force K-9 handler.

“I got to do a few details involving Distinguished Visitors.” “One of my last details was for Hillary when she was Secretary of State,” Bonner continued. “I helped with sweeps of her DV quarters and staff vehicles. Her words to me?” According to Bonner, Clinton told him, “Get that f***ing dog away from me.” “

Then she turns to her security detail and berates them up and down about why that animal was in her quarters,” Bonner added. “For the next 20 minutes, while I sit there waiting to be released, she lays into her detail, slamming the door in their faces when she’s done. The Detail lead walks over, apologizes, and releases me.

I apologize to him for getting him in trouble. His words, ‘Happens every day, Brother.’”

“Hillary doesn’t care about anyone but Hillary.”

Hey, maybe Murdock, and Bonner, made the whole thing up. Because there’s so much evidence of Her Majesty being respectful of her servants, such as… hmmm… we’ll think of something. One last pair of shots:

“Put this back on the ground!” Hillary Clinton screamed at the pilot of presidential helicopter Marine One. “I left my sunglasses in the limo. I need my sunglasses! We need to go back!” Clinton so abused the chopper’s crew that they christened it Broomstick One. Also in Dereliction of Duty, its author — Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Robert “Buzz” Patterson (Ret.), who carried the “nuclear football” — recalled hearing “volleys of expletives” erupting from Hillary’s mouth. He also lamented “the Nazi-like edge that emerged when she was around.”

Yeah, this is someone who has troopers’ and vets’ backs. Not to mention, she hates dogs.

The Army Celebrates Sexual Minorities, I

The Army’s nominal Chief of Staff, political officer General Mark “Aunt” Milley, has made it through the entire Transsexual Prostitutes series, and been responding to the ads in backpage.com, evidently:

Milley said he did a lot of “self-education,” meeting with transgender individuals, both military and civilian, as well as other groups.

So now he’s ready to trash the Army for its 10 remaining Bradley Mannings.

Ohhh-kay. What else has Auntie learned?

“The issue to do it or not to do it, to me is not an issue — the answer is yes,” Milley said. “The question of how to do it so that it is deliberate, well thought out, executed with professionalism — that’s a horse of a different color. Frankly I asked for more time.”

Anything more?

“It’s going to take a little bit of time, but there are some things I don’t think you need to necessarily be trained on,” Milley said.

Continue, General. Here’s a fresh shovel!

“We’re well-past the issue of debating and arguing about transgender. We are now into execution, to make sure the program is carried out with diligence, dignity, respect.”

So is he going to announce his new name on a reality show? Also, as we understand it, having your yarbles cut off is not the first thing one does in transition, but maybe he’s blazing a new trail. What’s the over-under on those yarbles being in a jar on Ash Carter’s mantlepiece, the price of the promotions that Milley valued over mission and men?

Lost Revolution: Hungary, 1956

60 years ago this week the citizens and government of Hungary rose up against the brutal quisling dictatorship of Matyas Rakosi and Andras Hegedus, and the Russian tanks that put them on the throne. Hungarian hero Bela Kiraly — like many of the great men of Eastern Europe, condemned to death by Nazi totalitarians and their Soviet brothers alike — led a lost cause resistance that initially beat the Red Army, only to be buried under Russian reinforcements.

The Soviets gained 35 more years of servitude from their Hungarian slaves. Kiraly and 200,000 other Hungarians escaped. Several hundred Soviets and several hundred Hungarians died in the fighting, and thousands of Hungarians received Russian culture in the back of the neck after surrendering.

Austin Bay has a decent overview of the doomed rising at Strategy Page, but he errs in saying it was the only rebellion in the Soviet slave states. It was the most sustained against Soviet terror, but East Germany rose in 1953, Czechoslovakia 1968, and Poland 1970, 1976, and 1980.

The Army Celebrates Sexual Minorities, II

And then, there’s Col. Robert Rice, 58, at the Army War College, who’s attending a General Court Martial this week — his own. 

Rice’s wife first turned him in three years ago, after installing tracking software on their home computer because she was suspicious he was having an affair.

According to his federal indictment, Rice had confessed to his wife that he was addicted to pornography and had been visiting strip clubs near his post at the Army War College in Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.

What she found included dozens of images of child pornography, messages in which he discussed exchanging pornography and how to hide it, as well as an explicit Craigslist posting looking for kinky sex from a man while his wife was out of town.

It doesn’t seem fair, but apparently there’s some diversity the suits haven’t told Milley to celebrate yet. Give it time, but it’ll be too late for Rice, whose boys-and-perv-porn habit already convicted him in Federal court once (he’s awaiting sentencing), and whose separate UCMJ trial could give him a separate sentence of over 40 years. We’d say, “sucks to be him,” but it probably always did.

(Small update: Rice was sentenced to four years. He’s got more coming from his regular fed court trial… we’re thinking about forty more. He’s 58, so he’ll be about 102 when he… ah, who are we kidding? Dude’s gonna die in jail).

Falsity, Baseness, Iniquity

You can always trust the FBI. Just ask them — better yet, just shut up and take it as a given. Peasant.

Meet Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, whose politician wife, Jill, is in Hillary Clinton’s pocket, via middleman Terry McAuliffe.

The McCabes received about three-quarters of a million dollars from a McAuliffe campaign nonprofit, ostensibly for her campaign for state Senate in Virginia (as, wouldn’t you know it, a far-left, anti-gun candidate). Cha-chingg! Sure, ’cause it takes millions to run for State office — when your husband has his mitts on the money-making potential of an investigation into someone with millions at stake.

McCabe and his wife are clearly crooked. He’d be in real trouble, if we had a Federal investigative agency.But the Sword and the Shield of the Party has his back.

Veterans’ Issues

Is it time to disband this thing yet, and letting all its bloatoverhead seek its own level in the Dreaded Private Sector™?

Item

Is it time to disband this thing yet?

Remember Sallie Hoser-Manyletters?

Really, her name is Sallie Houser-Hanfelder, and we mentioned her last week in an article about the VA leaking a critic’s medical information to discredit him. Hoser-Whatsis is the one who wrote the sorry-not-sorry letter to the guy saying, essentially, “Yup, we leaked your stuff, and nope, we’re not going to hold anyone accountable.”

Hoser-Hanfelder has been a classic VA leader, constantly failing upward. In 2013, after she presided over a facility where a young nutball beat a 78-year-old vet to death with his fists, she was promoted to a larger facility in Texas… and, get this (emphasis ours):

A news release announcing Houser-Hanfelder’s departure touted health service improvements and awards won by the hospital during her tenure. The news release also mentioned significant improvements in patient safety.

Patient safety, yeah. All the patients who weren’t beaten to death were much safer!

We’re not sure who she got killed in Texas to get promoted into the Colorado job.

Tick, tock…

The Case of the Finagling Fiduciary

Tamara Jones was appointed a fiduciary to manage a vet’s money. She managed it all right — right into her own pockets. Until she got caught.

Now this is a case of misconduct that’s hard to blame on the VA. Sure, they appointed her, but they didn’t put a gun to her head and tell her to clean out the vet’s accounts like she did.

Next stop, crowbar motel.

Lord Love a Duck!

The weird and wonderful (or creepy) that we didn’t otherwise get to. 

If You Won’t Stand, We Can’t Stand You

There’s the boringly familiar story of the 49ers’ lousy quarterback, who’s started two games and led his team to about half the other team’s score, but has made himself the darling of all the lefty jock-sniffer sports media by protesting America, Apple Pie, Chevrolet, and the Police. (The pig-in-a-cop-hat socks were a nice touch, knucklehead). The NFL has a little concern because it’s costing them the only thing any of them care about, money.

Meet Arek Trenholm. Arek stands for the anthem, or the flag. It’s a little harder for him than it is for you and me.

Arek’s uncle Myron Leggett posted this to Facebook:

To all of “Those” that refuse to stand for the Flag of the United States of America……….. this is my nephew Arek Trenholm, he has “spina bifida” he used his arms to “STAND” from his wheelchair as our Flag passed by!! He will never be able to “play” football, if he could, he would “Stand” as the flag passed or when the “National Anthem” is played. Take a lesson!

See, Arek has a messed up spine, but his heart is in the right place, and so is his head. That loser ballplayer and his imitators? Heart in the wrong place, head is swollen with self-regard, and if he has a spine at all, you coulda fooled us.

Innumeracy Strikes!

In the Philadelphia Inquirer, the functionally innumerate staff writer Jessica Parks wrote:

In 2016, the coalition reported, 57 people were killed in traffic accidents — the overwhelming majority of them pedestrians. Seven of those were children, and 10 were hit-and-run crashes.

In the linked database, there were 30 vehicle operators and passengers killed, and 27 pedestrians. In Parks’s world of J-School math, 27 > 30 and 27 > 2/57. In fact, it’s not just a majority, it’s an overwhelming majority.

But we’re sure this functionally uneducated writer has a J-school credential from somewhere.

What’s wrong with the public, that they don’t trust the media?

OT: Entertaining Review

Not many things can match reading Tom Wolfe for sheer enjoyment, but this review of his new book in Commentary magazine is pretty close.