[National Review] rom time to time over the years, the eminent historian Daniel Pipes has lamented that treason, not just as a crime but as a concept, appears defunct in the West. The question of bringing treason charges against jihadists has been raised from time to time.
Often its very asking proves Dr. Pipes’ point: Most radical Islamic terrorists are not American citizens; as to them, treason is not a cognizable offense because traitorous conduct is central to the crime. Even against American jihadists, a treason charge is of dubious usefulness.
The 1996 overhaul of federal counterterrorism law codified crimes tailored to terrorism that are easier to prove than treason. The aim of an indictment in a national-security case should be the surest route to the severest sentence.
The point is not to teach a civics lesson, regrettable as our education system’s default has been in that regard. Yet what is true of treason is not true of sedition. There are charges to bring against those who would destroy our society. They should be brought. Case in point: the University of California at Berkeley. As our National Review editorial observed in the aftermath of this week’s Berkeley rioting, "there is within the American Left an increasingly active element that is not only deeply illiberal -- fundamentally opposed to free speech -- but also openly violent." I’d further contend that the problem is not confined to this increasingly active element, the Left’s "progressives in a hurry."
Whether it is Berkeley or Benghazi, it is standard operating procedure among the most influential, most allegedly mainstream Democratic politicians to rationalize rioting as mere "protest." In their alternative reality, violence in the name of sedition is "free speech" -- a passionate expression of political dissent -- while the actual political speech they so savagely suppress is the atrocity. There is no mystery about how we got to this dark place. Violent rampaging was the coming-of-age rite of the New Left.
[National Post] I suggest, as a corollary to Orwell’s prescient observation that (I’m paraphrasing) some things are so stupid that only an intellectual could believe them, that should you seek stupidity in depth and a full lock on all mental development, enroll in a prestige high-fee North American liberal university. Further, I hold that whatever debates may be underway about the targets of Orwell’s dystopian Nineteen Eighty-Four, the modern university is the only institution that has taken that noble work for use as a manual.
For where else are words turned quite upside down, flipped over to stand on their bruised heads and told to dance to the rigorous tunes of fanatics? For it is only on a university campus that simple, basic words are made by violence to take on their exact and opposite meanings: up is down, right is wrong, day is night, and anti-fascism is fascism.
A couple of nights ago the Twitter-banished, Trump supporter, Internet gadfly and author Milo Yiannopoulos was scheduled to give a talk at the (hilariously regarded) home of the Free Speech movement of the 1960s, Berkeley campus in Oceania, sorry, in California. If I were to characterize Yiannopoulos I’d put him down as a right-wing, more sophisticated version of Jon Stewart. He is certainly more clever. There is a relaxed quality to his goading of the politically correct hordes that Stewart’s more determined sneering never really achieved.
Milo doesn’t have a TV show (yet) but he gives talks and is on a campus tour. Naturally when he showed up at Berkeley a riot broke out. A little flavour of the evening may be gleaned from any number of sources: "Protesters armed with bricks and fireworks mounted an assault on the building hosting a speech by ... Milo Yiannopoulos." Another: "Several injuries have been reported and at least four banks have been vandalized after demonstrators marched away from the scene of a violent protest at the cancelled speaking event by ... speaker Yiannopoulos."
Prices for pistol ammunition were steady across the board. Prices for rifle ammunition were mixed.
Prices for used pistols were mixed. Prices for used rifles were higher across the board.
New Lows:
None.
Pistol Ammunition
.45 Caliber, 230 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (4Q, 2016)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .24 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: FedArm, Own Brand, TMJ, Brass Casing, Reloads, .23 per round (From Last week: Unchanged (2 Weeks))
.40 Caliber Smith & Wesson, 180 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (5 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .22 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: LAX Ammunition, Own brand, Brass Casing, Reloads, .21 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks))
9mm Parabellum, 115 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (4Q, 2016)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .15 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: FedArm, Own Brand, TPMJ, Brass Casing, Reloads, .15 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (4 Weeks))
.357 Magnum, 158 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .24 per round
Cheapest Bulk: 1,000 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel casing, .24 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks))
.38 Special, 158 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (3 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: LAX Ammunition, Own brand, LRN, Aluminum Casing, .26 per round
Cheapest Bulk: 500 rounds: FedArm, Own Brand, TMJ, Brass casing, Reloads, .20 per round (From Last Week Unchanged (2 Weeks))
Rifle Ammunition
.223 Caliber/5.56mm 55 Grain, From Last Week: -.01 Each After Unchanged (3 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Wolf WPA, FMJ, Steel Casing, .20 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Wolf WPA, FMJ, Steel Casing, .20 per round (From Last Week: -.01 Each After Unchanged (3 Weeks)
.308 NATO 150 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Alamo Ammo, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .31 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .32 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks)
7.62x39mm AK 123 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Wolf WPA, Steel Case, FMJ, .21 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: SG Ammo, Wolf WPA, Steel Case, FMJ, .21 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks))
.30-06 Springfield 145 Grain. From Last Week Unchanged (3 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: SG Ammo, Wolf WPA, Steel Case, FMJ, .65 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Ammo Liquidator, Wolf WPA, Steel Case, FMJ, .56 per round (From Last week: Unchanged (2 Weeks))
.300 Winchester Magnum 150 Grain, From Last Week: +.05 Each After Unchanged (2 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Vizards Guns and Ammo, Remington, Brass Case, SP, .93 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: Ammo Liquidator, Hornady Whitetail, Brass Case, SP, 1.04 per round (From Last Week: -.02 Each)
.338 Lapua Magnum 250 Grain, From Last Week: +.08 Each After Unchanged (2 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Selway Armory, Prvi Partizan, Brass Case, JSP, 2.38 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 200 rounds: Target Sports USA, Prvi Partizan, Brass Case, FMJ, 2.40 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (3 Weeks)
.22 LR 40 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds (10 Box Limit): Ammomen, Federal, RNL, .06 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Target Sports USA, Federal Champion, RNL, .06 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (3 Weeks))
#1
Just got an add from Cheaper than Dirt offering .22 LR at 5 cents per round - though it's really 5 1/2 cents. Still, lowest I've seen in years. Crappy MaxxTech, but still...
#5
#3 Do you mean $0.005, badanov? I always understood .24 per round to mean 24 cents.
To clarify. Every half penny or more, I round up the base to the next penny. Ammoseek started this unit pricing about 18 months ago, so rather than adapt to what they were doing, I adopted my own means of expressing unit pricing.
[Task & Purpose] Last year, retired Army Gen. David Petraeus ominously predicted that the divisive anti-Muslim rhetoric during the presidential election would not fade and would make our country less safe. This warning came to pass last week as President Donald Trump’s travel ban took effect on Friday afternoon and created the chaos across America’s major airports.
The immediate outcry was predictable and justified. It doesn’t require Petraeus’ experience to realize that labeling all citizens of certain Muslim countries as suspects helps jihadists recruit new members by pitching their struggle as a religious war between Islam and the West.
But what I fear more than the way this order aids groups like ISIS and al Qaeda are the short-term risks for our forces on the ground. Treating all citizens of Muslim nations like potential terrorists alienates our Muslim allies who are fighting terrorists with America today. Nowhere are these effects so palpable than with the special operations forces around the globe who interact with these allies on a day-to-day basis.
To understand these impacts of Trump’s order, it’s helpful to understand how special operations are conducted. The large majority of special operations involve working with a partner force that creates something we call a "force multiplier." For example, a small group of special operators will deploy to an austere environment far away from U.S. forces to equip and train locals to be better and more effective fighters. Doing so, this small team of 12 or fewer Americans "multiplies" their impact by creating seasoned fighters out of hundreds or thousands of local nationals. The enemy, instead of facing a small team of highly capable Americans, faces a much larger group with well-trained and equipped fighters using local intelligence.
Strategically, this yields a better return on investment for the U.S. military. For every special operations-trained team deployed, there are thousands of conventional forces that America isn’t putting at risk to accomplish the same goal. Simultaneously, this is the exit plan: By training partner forces to proficiency, we won’t need to help them one day.
When I was in Afghanistan, I was part of one of these units that trained, mentored, and led an elite unit of Afghan commandos on combat missions. We would spend weeks training hundreds of commandos to proficiency and then fought arm-in-arm with them on raids against Taliban insurgencies in the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan.
#1
We've been conducting Foreign Internal Defense (FID) missions and training indigenous forces in Iraq and Afghanistan for how many years....and suddenly Donald Trump is now responsible for continuing mission (host nation) failure and the death of a SEAL operator in Yemen ?
Total rubbish.
An 'ominous' Petraeus quote lead-in, absolutely priceless.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/04/2017 12:29 Comments ||
Top||
#5
A kind of Bizarro-Finlandization apparently is now a mainstream Western political doctrine.
We are witnessing a process by which a group of weak and failed countries strongly influences the policies of a a group of prosperous and overwhelmingly powerful countries, while allowing them to nominally keep their independence and political system.
Why shouldn't e.g. Russia and China conclude that the West has gone mad?
#6
Hate to break the news to you Devil Dog but our FID missions in IRQ and AFG have been total failures. 100's of SF lives and 100's of millions of dollars - failure. IRQ is lost and AFG is Vietnam in late 71 early 72 - just waiting for the Easter Offensive. We f'd up both places and we just don't have the sense or balls to own up it.
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
02/04/2017 23:24 Comments ||
Top||
[Feral Jundi] I finally got a chance to watch The Somali Project, which was originally called The Project. This documentary was purchased by The Vladar Company and the film is now available to buy or rent. With that said, I was able to rent the film through youtube, and it is fantastic! When you rent it, you get the film for 48 hours. You also have the choice to rent a High Definition version, and that is what I went with.
Now I had read about the film and how it did at the Tribeca Film festival, I blogged about it, and I watched the trailer. But I never got a chance to watch the whole thing. Here on the blog, I have also written about the Puntland Maritime Protection Force and about piracy off the coast of Somalia during the peak years of that problem. It was a horrible deal, with hundreds of folks taken hostage and just rotting away off the coast of Somalia in captured ships. My interest in the matter was getting armed guards on boats, so that these pirates would have friction at sea. On land, the PMPF was the answer to attacking the source of piracy.
[ABC] The U.S. is putting regional stability in East Asia at risk, a Chinese spokesman said Saturday following remarks by President Donald Trump's defense secretary that a U.S. commitment to defend Japanese territory applies to an island group that China claims.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang on Saturday called on the U.S. to avoid discussion of the issue and reasserted China's claim of sovereignty over the tiny uninhabited islands, known in Japanese as the Senkaku and Chinese as Diaoyu.
The 1960 U.S.-Japan treaty is "a product of the Cold War, which should not impair China's territorial sovereignty and legitimate rights," Lu was quoted as saying in a statement posted on the ministry's website.
"We urge the U.S. side to take a responsible attitude, stop making wrong remarks on the issue involving the Diaoyu islands' sovereignty, and avoid making the issue more complicated and bringing instability to the regional situation," Lu said.
[MI Daily Update] Bioelectronics is as big a jump as ditching vacuum tubes.
President Trump says he will revive U.S. manufacturing through better trade deals and tax incentives. Others argue that America has entered a new "postmanufacturing" era. Sound familiar? In the 1970s, the U.S. had a stagnant economy, sluggish productivity, high unemployment and an auto industry threatened by the Japanese "juggernaut." Doomsday was nigh.
But with a big boost from the Reagan tax cuts and deregulation, entirely new domains of manufacturing emerged, breathing new life into the U.S. economy in the 1980s, ’90s and 2000s. Today, producing semiconductors and computing hardware is a $1.5 trillion-a-year global industry, comparable to automobile sales. And that unforeseen revolution gave birth to a whole new economy and tech giants like Intel, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Facebook.
What are the mandarins of economic forecasting missing today? Here are three examples, each as transformational as going from vacuum tubes to transistors to microchips.
Bioelectronics. Pliable, biocompatible microchips and sensors allow computing devices not only to be comfortably worn (think "smart" bandages) but also implanted in living tissue or widely distributed into the environment, enabling biological and medical advances as remarkable as silicon electronics.
Transient electronics. Digital devices that literally disappear on a schedule, or are consumable, will allow entirely new ways for sensing our environment as well as hyperprecise delivery of new kinds of therapeutics in specific areas of the body, organs and even cells.
Electroceuticals. These dust-sized, microscopic wireless sensors target nerves, areas of the brain and other human tissue to treat an array of medical conditions including chronic pain and infections.
Consider that the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded "for the design and synthesis of molecular machines." Like last century’s revolution in chemical and pharmaceutical production, today powerful physics-based algorithms, combined with....
#4
Jobs are an easy sell to the masses and media, but it is really about keeping technology and know how, rather than sending it China. Doesn't really matter what the technology is.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Task & Purpose] Last year, retired Army Gen. David Petraeus ominously predicted that the divisive anti-Muslim rhetoric during the presidential election would not fade and would make our country less safe. This warning came to pass last week as President Donald Trump’s travel ban took effect on Friday afternoon and created the chaos across America’s major airports.
[Feral Jundi] I finally got a chance to watch The Somali Project, which was originally called The Project. This documentary was purchased by The Vladar Company and the film is now available to buy or rent. With that said, I was able to rent the film through youtube, and it is fantastic! When you rent it, you get the film for 48 hours. You also have the choice to rent a High Definition version, and that is what I went with.
