Democrats want gun to use tech that doesn't really exist;

because(all together now) "It's for the CHILDREENNN!"

And I guarantee that somewhere in there law enforcement and military will be exempt.


Can you scream "BULLSHIT!"?
Attorney General Eric Holder told the House Judiciary Committee he recused himself from the leak investigation involving sweeping surveillance of the Associated Press because he was a “fact witness,” meaning he had access to the classified data at issue and was questioned about it. But he can’t recall when he recused himself. And it wasn’t in writing. In one of the worst security leaks of which he is aware (he says), he never told the White House (he says) that he took himself out of the loop.
I knew you could.


I have to say, while I generally disapprove of such things, I do sympathize.


The Wall Street Journal set the record straight: "The IRS is many things, but 'independent' isn't one of them. It is formally part of the Treasury Department and is headed by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, who is appointed by the President. The Commissioner is accountable to the President reporting through the Treasury Secretary."
Hmmm, and as I recall the TS was Little Timmy 'It Was All Turbotax's Fault' Geithner, wasn't he?


And now, having spent the day- among other things- digging six two-foot-deep postholes in somwhat damp clay soil and setting posts, I am now going to go collapse.

To all the people who insist we need more .gov to save health care,

go read this.  Or, more likely here, point those friends to it.


More on the IRS acting as thugs for Obama and the Democrats:
The director of the Office of Rulings and Agreements, which oversees the determinatons of tax-exempt organizations, is a donor to Barack Obama. Holly Paz donated $2,000 to Obama’s 2008 campaign, according to Open Secrets, which maintains a database of individual political donations.


The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) official who apologized for targeting conservative nonprofit groups for extra scrutiny is married to an attorney whose firm hosted a voter registration organizing event for the 2012 Obama re-election campaign, praised President Obama’s policy work, and had one of its partners appointed by Obama to a key ambassadorship.

Roundup of a lot of the crap coming to the surface.  And that's not counting the crap floating up from the Benghazi investigation

Sean has a breakdown of the 'Moms Demand Action(against you)' demands,

which boil down to
They don’t just hate your guns, they hate you and they hate your freedom.


NAACP leader: "The IRS should violate the law and ethics and go after those people, because I don't like them."


Truth Minister Carney says "There's nothing to this!"

Pic found at Sipsey, also links to the next two stories.

Los Angeles wants to confiscate legally-owned magazines as 'public nuisances'.
They really don't mind wasting other peoples' money on court cases, do they?


Hazards of a militarized police force.


The People's Republic of New Jersey; anybody really doubt Christie will sign this crap if it hits his desk?


Over in Missouri, looks like they're really pissed both at what happened, and at agencies saying "We don't want to tell you anything."
Last week, two actions have occurred to try and get the full truth out of the Department of Revenue. First, in a lawsuit filed in Stoddard County regarding the scandal, subpoenas have been issued to Governor Jay Nixon and senior officials at the Department of Revenue to compel their testimony. Second, the Senate took sweeping action by defunding several divisions of the Department of Revenue that are directly connected to the source document scanning program. In total, the Senate’s actions would strip more than $40 million out of the Department’s budget, directed mostly at the divisions responsible for driver licensing. The Senate has made it clear that these appropriations will not be restored until the Department comes clean about everything regarding this scandal.

Like Insty says, Good:

A steeper-than-expected rise in US shale oil reserves is about to change the global balance of power between new and existing producers, a report says. 

Over the next five years, the US will account for a third of new oil supplies, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Which accounts for Obama and the EPA trying to stop it; they WANT us dependent on outside sources.


Liberal Rednecks.  Oh yeah.  You might be one if-


Something on the subject of weather and general science and what all we don't know. 


I tried out the homebrew CLP.  Despite what you might think, the smell is very faint.  And not objectionable.  Only did minor cleaning/lubing, but it did a very nice job of wiping out bores.  More to follow.

I've heard of 'throwing like a girl',

but damn!

And before long after that it'll be 'any reading within the margin of error

of 0.01%'; because this is more about control than safety.

Thus causing the weenies in question to burst into flames

like vampires in the presence of a piece of the True Cross:

The IRS demands Marion Bower provide the Government with details of what materials her group is reading.
Mrs Bower mails back a copy of the United States Constitution.

'Low-level employees at one office'

my ass:
Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved with investigating conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, making clear that the effort reached well beyond the branch in Cincinnati that was initially blamed, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

IRS official: "Oh no, I didn't lie to Congress, I just didn't tell them about some things.  Even when they asked."

And don't forget Sebelius extorting money to pay for Obamacare.


And the EPA playing more games.
Conservative groups seeking information from the Environmental Protection Agency have been routinely hindered by fees normally waived for media and watchdog groups, while fees for more than 90 percent of requests from green groups were waived, according to requests reviewed by the Conservative Enterprise Institute.


Daughter once referred to a good moving as 'somehow having made it through the Disney crap machine'; this kind of garbage is a fine illustration.  "Hey, this character's really popular!  So let's change it!"


ATK is expanding into the gun-making market.


Ever heard of Stumpies Custom Guns?  Go take a look.


That homemade CLP formula at PDB mentioned the other day?  Dug around, and after getting a bottle of Mobil 1 and the STP, had enough stuff to make a 1/4 batch; that'll be PLENTY to try it out.  In fact, I've got some stuff that needs cleaning.  After I till the garden and get the truck cleaned out.

Another source for stock for small punches

Music wire.

I'd always thought it would work for the purpose, but I'd never actually tried it.  So...

Happily, I had a piece of 1/4" out in the garage.  This stuff IS hardened, so cutting it with a hacksaw will require heating the area for the cut up to a dull red(easiest seen in deep shade or a dark area) and letting it cool.  I cut a piece, then shaped and heat-treated it same as the rock drill.  Just tapped it on a couple of things, and it seems to work well.  Might need to be tempered a bit harder(yellow to light bronze) to last as well, far as staying sharp, but will have to experiment to find that out.

This stuff can be found at hobby shops, and a lot of hardware stores; I seem to remember it comes in sizes above 1/4", though not bigger than 3/8" at most.

Tab clearing. Yes, again.

Biometric database requirements hidden in the immigration 'reform' bill


More IRS abuse of power and law, and leaking.

Right now, if you want to keep up with a lot of the crap coming out on this, just go to Instapundit and search 'IRS'.  You'll have reading material for the next couple of hours.


A lesson for politicians on getting snotty and snobby on news sources.  And something on the DHS ammo buys.


PDB on discoveries ref the Model 94, double-edge razors and big cars.
Also on a homemade CLP formula; be interesting to see how it works.


And

So, if the NYEffingTimes and Timeis reporting on it, is it still

a conspiracy theory that the IRS abused its power for political purposes?

Tab clearing

Pictures of guns make British GFWs wet their pants.


“They let him die, and then told lies over his coffin,” he told fill-in host Guy Benson.


 "I'm not good at math."  You're not very good with the truth, either.
A federal watchdog’s upcoming report says senior Internal Revenue Service officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups in 2011.
...
Among the other revelations, on Aug. 4, 2011, staffers in the IRS’ Rulings and Agreements office “held a meeting with chief counsel so that everyone would have the latest information on the issue.”
'Mistake by low-level employees' my ass.


I have GOT to read this book.


Lawdog's thoughts on ITAR and State Dept. PSH.


Got stuck behind a car yesterday which had a half-dozen stickers on the back; the usual 'coexist' and 'Obama' and 'Democrats care', being driven-not very well- by an idiot who was using an electric toothbrush...

Generally useful tools, in this case Updated

A prick punch and center punch, beginning to end.

NOTE: If you want to make these, please remember that this method involves cutting tools, power tools, and torches, and if you don't pay attention to what you're doing you WILL GET HURT.  And if you do, it's your own damn fault so don't yell at me.

First, the terms: most of you know a center punch: a relatively blunt point, used to make a deep punch mark, good for starting a drill bit without it walking away from the spot.

A prick punch has a much slimmer, finer point.  Easy to move along a scribed or marked line and put in the exact spot you want the hole.  But unlike the center punch, you only use a light tap on this one; its job is to mark the spot precisely, then you use the center punch to deepen the mark.

This is a stone drill, the kind you hit with a hammer, and it makes a 5/16” hole.

Good steel, excellent for the purposes.  A lot of these, the shank either isn’t hardened or is to a much lower degree than the cutting end; for that matter I’ve seen some where the cutting end wasn’t very hard.  Either case, you can usually cut the piece with a hacksaw.  In this case, it gives two pieces five inches long*.

 If the whole thing is hardened, mark the spots where you want to cut and use the torch to heat them up to a low red, then let it cool; that should normalize those areas enough to let the saw cut.

For punches, here’s the two tools that do most of the work for me: drill or driver, and the belt/disc sander.

Chuck one of the pieces into the drill, and start grinding.  First thing I do is bevel the striking end so it’s smooth and has no corners.

Second, turn it around in the drill and use a low angle to taper the other end.

Third, form the point.
Yes, it’ll get hot on that end, hot enough to soften it.  Since you're going to have to heat-treat it, not a problem.***

They’ll work as-is, but they'll dull the first time you use them; much better to heat-treat them, and on small stock like this a cup of water and a propane torch will do.  For heavier stock you’ll need something a bit hotter(and something with more volume for the coolant), as you need to get the point section up to at least a low-red heat, ideal is a medium- or cherry-red.  Do NOT try to get the thing as hot as possible, you’ll damage the structure and ruin that section(yes, you can anneal it and start over, but let's keep this simple).

Short digression: steel has a grain structure, and the finer you keep it the better.  The first stage of heat-treating is hardening: get the piece, or- as in this case- the section of it you need to harden- up to critical temperature** and then quench it, cool it very fast.  Get the steel another 50 to 100F above critical and the grain structure starts to enlarge, and the hotter it gets the worse; if you harden it then it'll look fine, but it'll have a coarse structure that's weak.  Much more prone to chipping or breaking.
This stuff isn’t a air-hardening steel, which hardens just from being brought up to heat and then letting it cool in air; it has to be quenched in water(preferably hot to reduce the amount of shock to the steel) or oil(also better heated; not only to reduce shock but to make it flow better for a more even quench.  Not too critical on a piece like this, very critical on a blade of any sort).  Most of the stuff I’ve worked with, critical temp is 1500F, plus or minus 50; that medium or cherry-red is it, and you can learn to see it; or can use a Tempilstik, or a thermometer like this, to check it.

In this case water will do nicely, so get a cup ready.  All you need or want to heat here is the area up to about a half-inch from the point; that’s the part that has to be hard, and this leaves a softer shank to absorb shock and for the hammer to strike.  Find a shady spot so you can see the color and start heating the end,

turning it to keep it even.  I try to keep the tip of the flame about 1/2" back from the point; if you put it ON the point that'll heat fast, true; but I want more than just the point to be hard, so I actually get from the point about 1/4-3/8" back to the required color, and when it looks right stick it in the water.   Swirl it around a bit, won’t take long for a small piece to cool.

I like to check for hardness with a fine file.  Just stroke it lightly on the hardened area, and if you did it right the file will skate over without biting; if it does bite, either you didn’t have it quite hot enough or it’s not the high-carbon steel you thought(yes, I’ve had that occur; damn cheap drills or files).

Back to the grinder, this time just touch it lightly, to shine up the surface.

The second step of heat-treatment is tempering; heat the piece up again, but to a much lower temperature.  Hardened high-carbon steel is highly-stressed and brittle; idea is to use sufficient heat to relieve enough of the stresses so it’s not brittle, but leave enough that it’s still hard enough not to dull when you whack it.

If need, can hold the shank with pliers, though since you’re mainly heating the sharp end I can usually just hold it by hand.  Hold it point angled upward and start heating no less than an inch below the hardened area;

if you’ve got a torch with a pinpoint head you can start a bit closer, with a wide flame further back.  And turn the flame down a bit; slow is good here.  Keep the piece turning and watch for colors(and yes, you can hold it in the drill and spin slowly if you wish).  The first you’ll see is a very faint yellow appear that should flow up toward the point; behind that it’ll darken into a dark yellow, then into a bronze.   For this tool I like light-to-medium bronze as the stopping point.  Once the yellow is moving up to the point you can usually remove the torch; should be hot enough in the area you heated for heat to keep flowing up the piece.  And soon as the desired color reaches the point, quench it to stop the process.  It should look something like this

If need,  sharpen the point and test it on a piece of suitable metal.  And that’s it.

If you want to practice the tempering to get used to the colors, just shine up a piece of steel, any shape, and then heat it and watch.  Kind of fascinating to observe as the colors appear and march along.

And if you need a small, fine chisel, this stuff works well for that too.  For a chisel you just grind the two sides flat for the main bevel.

On one this small, I prefer to grind the main bevels, then harden & temper(same as on the punches, then grind the edge bevel.  Depending on exact purpose and what you expect to use it on, can use a fairly blunt edge bevel, or a very thin.

I had a third piece of stock available, so made one of each: prick punch, center punch and chisel

Closer look at the working ends

The punches are right after tempering, the chisel I shined up when ground the edge bevels.

Update: Tried this with music wire, full info here




*Nice thing about making these, you can make them as long or short as suits our purpose.
**Depending on the alloy, critical temp can vary from 1500 to over 2000F for some of the air-hardening tool steels; some of those also need a controlled-atmosphere for best results, and that can get complicated.  Which is why a lot of knifemakers who work with those steels send them to a specialist for heat-treating.
***You can use this setup to resharpen a punch that's dull; since that should already be hardened, take it slow and have some water to dip it in to keep it from overheating.  Which can happen a lot faster than you might think.

'Even-handed, unbiased, non-political agency' my ass

A federal watchdog’s upcoming report says senior Internal Revenue Service officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups in 2011.
...
Among the other revelations, on Aug. 4, 2011, staffers in the IRS’ Rulings and Agreements office “held a meeting with chief counsel so that everyone would have the latest information on the issue.”

On Jan, 25, 2012, the criteria for flagging suspect groups was changed to, “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform/movement,” the report says.
Translation: "These people are upsetting the President and a lot of other politicians, so let's go after them."

If the IRS was serious about that 'even-handed and non-biased' stuff, they'd have come down on the people involved in this like a semi rolling over an armadillo; but they didn't.

But we're supposed to trust them.  Yeah, add this to our tax-cheat former Treasury Secretary and tax-cheat politicians who get special deals as to why we SHOULDN'T trust them.  And why a serious housecleaning is needed.

Preferably involving something really nasty in the way of exit routes.

Over in (fG)Britain, this counts as progress

A new law has finally come into force giving householders the right to ‘bash a burglar’…but not if they are stealing from your garden shed.
...
But it yesterday emerged the new rules contain a string of exemptions.
For instance, in guidance sent to prosecutors, officials say that homeowners cannot rely on the new defence if they find an intruder in their garden, such as stealing a lawn mower or ornament.
Nor will they be protected if they chase the burglar outside. The fight must take place indoors.
So the commoners can defend themselves, even with force, BUT
The guidance also says that shopkeepers can only get away with using ‘disproportionate’ force on robbbers if they live above their shop, and only if the two parts of the building are connected.

Shop assistants and customers cannot get involved in the violence, unless their loved ones happen to be living in the store.

Householders cannot use the defence if they are only trying to protect their property, rather than trying to defend themselves or their family.
So if someone is about to cut your throat, the clerk can't legally jump in and beat him over the head with something useful because THAT is just not allowed...

Kind of disgusting, isn't it; idiotic as this is, it really IS progress over there.

How screwed is Illinois, Part II:

In the interview, Feigenholtz, a Chicago Democrat in the 12th District, announced her intention to “give rights” to the gay community in Illinois and felt that this “giving” of rights was one of the most important jobs of elected officials.

“For me, the most precious thing I do as a lawmaker is giving people rights,” Feigenholtz said. “We have a powerful opportunity as elected officials to do this.”
Giving rights.

GIVING RIGHTS...

Sink the place, it's done for.

Originated with a 'low-level employee' in one city,

and somehow escaped scrutiny... yeah, I'll buy that.

With someone else's money.

Anybody still believe the 'honest, no-agenda, even-handed tax agency' line?

More here.


Yep: that vile bastard Lautenberg and his little buddy Schumer want to make you get a license to buy powder, smokeless or black.  ANY amount.  Because terrorists took fireworks apart to make bombs, so gun owners need to be screwed.
Found at Sipsey:

The new Powder Alarm:

In short, it looks like this bill is specifically designed to restrict the ability of those who load their own ammunition or use black powder firearms from buying the components that fuel their activities.

Earlier stuff here.


Lady discovers that actually eating, and working out, and being healthy and strong is a lot better than being a opium-addict lookalike.

Now if she can get this message through to the fashion industry and entertainment clowns who’ve been the ones pushing this ‘looking like a concentration camp survivor is sexy’ crap…


Damn.  And here I thought Marines were the strong, illiterate type...
Message 1: from General James Mattis, on the matter of professional reading, 20 November
2003
….The problem with being too busy to read is that you learn by experience (or by your men’s

experience), i.e. the hard way. By reading, you learn through others’ experiences, generally a better way to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences of incompetence are so final for young men.

Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed (successfully or unsuccessfully) before. It doesn’t give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.
And it goes on from there.


Want to know how screwed Chicago is?
A: The effing museum in Chicago isn't allowed to display guns from the collection, and
Clarke said the current city code is unclear if historic guns can even be stored in the museum's archives, so the library has moved its collection to a fire-proof safe at a gun range in the Chicago suburbs.
B: This alderman who is 'a history expert' said of a Walther PP
"I don’t know if someone's going to find ammo for a German handgun from World War II all that readily," Clarke said, referring to the Levine's pistol Burke highlighted Wednesday.
Yeah, it's just effing impossible to find ammo for one of those...


Another response to the clowns who insist "Nobody wants to take your guns!":
A microphone left on after the gavel fell at a New Jersey Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee hearing Thursday shows the “true view” of some of the senators toward gun owners, and provides proof that gun confiscation is a goal on which they agree, the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs revealed in an email to members and supporters today. The group is the official NRA state association.
...
Among the lines heard in the recording:

"We needed a bill that was going to confiscate, confiscate, confiscate.”
"They don’t care about the bad guys. All they want to do is have their little guns and do whatever they want with them.”

No, they don't want to confiscate, nooooo.

Yes, kindly Mother Nature wants to kill you;

and she has lots of ways to try.
And, like it or not, eventually she'll win.


Lightning may actually be caused by cosmic rays; ever notice that what we 'know' just keeps being revised?


A bit of history: the bombing of Dresden happened for reason, and there's been a lot of bullshit told about it.


Hey, Mrs. Clinton, it DOES matter.  For a variety of reasons.

And let's not forget the attacks on free speech that followed the "It was a video!" lie.
And that guy is still in jail.


Life and 'law enforcement' in the People's Republic of MA:
“The local police have been running a racket where they sell guns that under the law they are supposed to be holding in safekeeping, often lying to the owners about the law, claiming that they are confiscated, and then refusing to compensate those who realize they have been wronged because they know the cost of legal action is prohibitive,” Mirsky elaborated. “In effect they have turned ‘safekeeping’ into ‘confiscation’ and have been targeting gun owners using any justification as it is very profitable.

“Because of that, the Quincy police have been targeting gun owners for years, using the chief's ability to suspend a license to carry over just about anything he pleases, as well as the all too easy to get restraining order from an unhappy spouse or girlfriend,” Mirsky continued.
Don't forget, one of the reasons they can pull crap like this is 'may issue', and the local head LEO being able to yank somebody's license for whatever reason he chooses.

And people wonder why we have a problem with 'may issue'...


Like he says, with friends like these...
So it would seem that SAF/CCRKBA is doing their level best to help revive this bill, along with the Democratic leadership in the Senate. We’ve already started to see Jeff Flake go soft, and there’s rumors about Ayotte. I think both of them are hoping this issue goes away. But not, apparently, if Alan Gottlieb has his way.
Do note that, in a later post, we find that Flake says "No I'm not."  A good thing, which doesn't change that Gottlieb & Co. seem determined to screw us.

"Shoot a goat or a camel,

it's to save Mother Gaia!"
So, in the name of stopping global warming they're chasing critters with a helicopter and shooting them...
How much emissions from the choppers, I wonder?



"Bullshit" Is One Word, "Performance Review" Two
Found over here, further thoughts on the matter


Remember your history of the French Revolution?  The Committee for Public Safety?
Child rapists are so hated that few people can bring themselves to say a word in their 'defense'. That's what the State relies upon -- a general willingness to strip certain people of all rights under the law simply becuase they are that thoroughly detested. Through its treatment of sex offenders, the state establishes many precedents in law that can be used against other categories of people, especially in perilous time when oh-so many categories constitute a public threat.
...
I no longer think the name is funny. I think it is altogether possibility that all freedom in America will be killed in the name of public safety.
Found at this gentleman's place; if you've not read his stuff before, I recommend you look around.


About those talking points from the CIA,
ABC News has obtained 12 different versions of the talking points that show they were extensively edited as they evolved from the drafts first written entirely by the CIA to the final version distributed to Congress and to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice before she appeared on five talk shows the Sunday after that attack.

White House emails reviewed by ABC News suggest the edits were made with extensive input from the State Department. The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack.


Tam on the "We have to control this!" vapors of the State Department;  and the link to Huffman's thoughts on this mess.


Yeah, I've wondered about that

Under the heading of 'Stupidity Involving Badges', you can't get much worse

than this:
Two DeLand police officers got behind the car as it headed west on Beresford Avenue. Brown did not stop and made a left turn on South Delaware Avenue, a dead-end street that ends near an empty lot. Brown stopped the car and ran from it, as one DeLand patrol car stopped behind Brown's Toyota Camry. The other patrol car, driven by Officer Harris, drove past on the left of the other stopped patrol car and struck Brown, who was running, with the right front, Montes said.

Harris then ran over Brown, killing him on the spot, Montes said.
And what heinous crime had Brown committed, worth pursuit and this?

He wasn't wearing his seat belt.

They started chasing him in the first place BECAUSE HE WASN'T WEARING HIS SEAT BELT.

I don't think I can swear well enough to cover the levels of unnecessary, stupid and disgusting involved in this.