Wilco LivePD Pissing Match: Take Two

May 7th, 2020

Dwight sent this over, and it’s certainly something:

Williamson County commissioners took a step toward suing Sheriff Robert Chody when they voted Tuesday to hire lawyers for a possible lawsuit over a contract he signed for the “Live PD” television show.

LivePD is sort of “NFL RedZone for Cops.”

Chody did not get permission from the Williamson County Commissioners Court before he signed an agreement in March allowing Big Fish Entertainment, the production company for “Live PD,” to resume filming sheriff’s deputies.

In August, the commissioners canceled the county’s contract with “Live PD” after the show had come under fire from prosecutors and defense attorneys who cited a lack of access to potential evidence gathered by film crews, and from officials who said it portrayed the county in a poor light.

Chody did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. He has hired, at his own expense, attorney Eric Taube to represent him, Taube said in an email Tuesday.

“While the sheriff would have preferred to resolve this issue with the commissioners with civil discussion and dialogue, it appears that the commissioners would rather attempt to go down a different path,” Taube said.

“The sheriff is happy to resolve this issue based upon the law and not on politics, and will look forward to continue to exercise his discretion as a law enforcement officer to serve the citizens of Williamson County as he believes most effective.”

Taube did not respond to a request for comment on why the sheriff decided to sign an agreement with the production company without getting permission from the Commissioners Court, as had happened with the original contract.

Jason Nassour, general counsel for Williamson County Attorney Dee Hobbs, sent the commissioners a letter Friday saying that, although the commissioners have the power to determine the sheriff’s budget, they cannot “decide how an official uses those resources once allocated and may not micromanage an official’s decisions as to the use of those resources.”

The letter also said that what the sheriff signed with Big Fish Entertainment was not a contract but an access agreement.

“The court has attempted to assert control based on the premise that the access agreement is a contract rather than what is actually is the sheriff’s lawful authorization to allow Big Fish representatives into those areas controlled by the sheriff,” the letter said.

Commissioners have disagreed, saying what the sheriff signed was a contract and that the law gives the county control over how the sheriff’s facilities and equipment are used.

Austin attorney and former Travis County Judge Bill Aleshire said Tuesday, “The sheriff has almost no authority to contract with a vendor without approval by the Commissioners Court.”

“But the sheriff has independent authority to operate his office, including deciding who can and who cannot be present on calls the deputies go out on. Having disputes between county officials that give rise to litigation is not common, but there have been plenty of them over the decades.”

On Tuesday, the Commissioners Court unanimously hired the law firm of Howry Breen & Herman LLP and the law office of Randy Leavitt to represent the county in the dispute.

“We are in the middle of a disaster, a pandemic, and people are sick, and people are losing their jobs … and the sheriff is playing on TV,” Commissioner Russ Boles said after the court approved hiring the lawyers.

County Judge Bill Gravell abstained from voting on the hiring of the law firm and said he would not take part in the discussion of it in executive session. Gravell said there were “attorneys involved” that would cause him to abstain. He made no further comments.

You may remember my post on the original LivePD ban, which seemed to be in response to various non-PC events at the Sheriff’s office.

Chody reinstating LivePD after the Commissioner’s Court banned it once suggests there’s some sort of deeper pissing match going on there. Chody was an APD officer before he and his wife literally literally won the lottery, which would suggest that money isn’t a factor in his insistence on keeping LivePD filming.

Both Chody and three-quarters of the commissioner’s court (along with Gravell) are Republicans, but the commissioner’s court voted unanimously to fill a cease-and-desist letter over LivePD. Chody attended President Donald Trump’s 2019 State of the union address at the invitation of Congressman John Carter.

Does Chody like the fame LivePD brings him? Probably. Does the commissioner’s court have a grudge against him? Probably. But it feels like something else is going on here, and I’m not sure what it is.

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Chinese Lies Update For May 6, 2020

May 6th, 2020

Time for another roundup of Chinese lies and perfidy!

  • Remember all that blather about how there was “no way” the Wuhan coronavirus could have come from the Wuhan Institute of Virology? Yeah, not so much:

    A US government analysis leaked to the Washington Times concludes that the Wuhan Institute of Virology or the Chinese CDC is the “most likely” source of the COVID-19 pandemic which has killed over 200,000 people worldwide in roughly four months.

    The document, compiled from open sources and not a finished product, says there is no smoking gun to blame the virus on either the Wuhan Institute of Virology or the Wuhan branch of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, both located in the city where the first outbreaks were reported. -Washington Times

    And while we may not have a smoking gun proving that COVID-19 escaped from the Wuhan lab, “there is circumstantial evidence to suggest such may be the case,” according to the report.

    Also, it’s perhaps the world’s easiest game of connect-the-dots;

    • In 2013, scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology collected horseshoe bats at a cave 1,000 miles away infected with the virus that causes COVID-19. (Stored away and forgotten until January this year, the sample from the horseshoe bat contains the virus that causes Covid-19. -WSJ)
    • Peng Zhou, WIV’s head of Bat Virus Infection and Immunization, was researching “the molecular mechanism that allows Ebola and SARS-associated coronaviruses to lie dormant for a long time without causing diseases,” while a press release from his lab was titled “How bats carry viruses without getting sick.”
    • Zhou’s colleague, Shi Zhengli, has been involved in bioengineering bat coronaviruses – co-authoring a controversial 2015 paper which described the creation of a new virus by combining a coronavirus found in Chinese horseshoe bats with another that causes human-like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in mice.
    • In 2015, Nature magazine expressed concern over Zhengli’s experiments with bat coronavirus. The same year, the US government suspended funding to the lab due to their concern over risks of experimenting with bat coronavirus.
    • Meanwhile, the US State Department warned over safety standards at the Wuhan lab in a series of cables beginning in 2015, according to the Washington Post’s Josh Rogin.
  • China knew the Wuhan coronavirus was contagious but waited five days to tell anyone else:

    Chinese health officials were drawing up plans to combat the CCP virus, which they knew to be infectious, days before they informed the public about its potential to spread, according to internal government documents obtained by The Epoch Times.

    The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, originated in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. The virus has since spread to more than 200 countries and territories, causing more than 61,000 deaths in the United States alone.

    China officially confirmed that the virus could be transmitted between humans on Jan. 20, when top respiratory expert Zhong Nanshan made the announcement.

    Now, internal documents provided to The Epoch Times show that Beijing covered up what it knew, as central authorities were secretly providing directives to regional governments on how to cope with the outbreak.

    On Jan. 15, the regional health commission in northern China’s Inner Mongolia issued a “super urgent” emergency notice to its municipal counterparts, explaining how medical facilities should respond to a new form of pneumonia. The notice said that China’s National Health Commission had implemented treatment and prevention measures for local health agencies to deal with the new disease (now known as COVID-19).

  • “US intel believes China hid severity of coronavirus epidemic while stockpiling supplies.” Nothing says “neighborly” quite like selling you infected blankets while buying up all the small pox vaccines…
  • China arrests users for posting coronavirus memories to GitHub.
  • “Why Was the U.S. So Late to Recognize the China Threat?”

    During the Cold War, the U.S. foreign policy was largely based on assumptions that the Soviet Union’s leaders were determined to spread communism worldwide; they possessed strategic patience and were adaptive in pursuing their goal. The USSR would never be America’s partner but a long-term rival, and therefore it must be contained. Moreover, U.S. decision-makers assumed that American society would fully support this approach.

    However, after the end of that confrontation, strategists like former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger falsely assumed that Communist China could be changed into a benign actor, even a “responsible stakeholder,” or strategic partner of the U.S. were the U.S. to engage with China, believing that China’s rise was a positive thing.

    We argue that China is not just a rival but a formidable enemy. Its goal is not just to weaken America but supplant it and the liberal international order it created with a Communist ideology-based model of global governance. The PRC is more dangerous than the Soviet Union because it is unpredictable and more formidable. It is an amalgamation of a rapidly rising power and an ideological regime with an aggressive leader in Chairman Xi Jinping. Xi is both extremely ambitious and paranoid about his regime’s security as well as his own. These factors make this enemy far less certain than the Soviets.

    Additionally, China is far more formidable than the Soviet Union because it has learned key lessons from the USSR’s mistakes regarding competition with the United States. It is an extremely adaptive adversary. So adaptive that it has been seen as a partner rather than an enemy for a generation. Moreover, it was so highly valued as a partner that it was brought into the Western economic ecosystem to be allowed and encouraged to prosper. China’s rapid growth was made possible by the U.S. government, business, financial markets, and universities, as well as its own efforts. Close ties between the American elite and Chinese business interest remain strong, even in the wake of the coronavirus.

    Fundamentally, there remain sectors in U.S. government, business, and intellectual communities who still see China as a partner and want to return the Sino-American relationship to “normalcy.” Even in the wake of the coronavirus, close ties between the American elite and Chinese business interest remain strong, and there is an assumption that things will return to normal once Trump leaves office.

  • How did we get here?

    Decades ago, the political, corporate and industrial leaders of the West chose to enmesh the fate of their pliable people with that of the vigorous, voracious Chinese.

    Like the United States, another hard-hit region—Northern Italy, so progressive and tony—had swung its toll gates open. Italy outsourced whole production lines to China.

    Free trade in goods is great. But trade goods, not places. The toll gates were swung open to human trade, or population replacement.

    Since the Chinese had begun settling in Northern Italy and buying up assets, I hazard that, much like youngsters of King County, in Washington State—local Italian girls and boys have had a hard time affording life in their homeland.

    And now, their grandparents and parents are dying.

    Italy constructed gleaming tarmacs to accommodate the many direct flights to and from Wuhan. More than 100,000 Chinese citizens moved to Italy. As the Chinese accrued wealth over the past two decades, still more took up residence in Northern Italy, and bought up Italian firms.

    See if you can spot the trend. New York City, by Wikipedia’s telling, is home to far and away “the highest Chinese-American population of any city proper.”

    Courtesy of an Italian strain of COVID-19, the New York metropolitan area has been as badly struck as Italy. In early April, it was said that “coronavirus was killing a person roughly every four minutes in New York state, and about every six minutes in New York City.”

    In my state of Washington, the overwhelming majority of Chinese reside in King County and Snohomish County, where the infection was seeded and from where it spread.

    The West’s political and corporate leaders, not China’s, had opened their borders to the world’s flotsam and jetsam. Agreements to exchange goods and people reflected the choices of these gilded global elites, not those of their people.

    The sphinxly Bill Gates, we are told, foresaw the pandemic. Gates also pioneered the outsourcing of American lives to China (and India). I say “lives,” because, as it has become abundantly clear, in the wake of COVID, the very stuff of life has been outsourced to China. Not mere jobs; but careers, not just some products, but entire production lines; not one or two manufacturing plants, but the entire means of production.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • “As China’s Economy Implodes, Trump Ratchets Up the Pressure“:

    As the Wuhan coronavirus continues to spread, stay at home orders have shut down commerce in many parts of the world. Some have predicted a 40% contraction in the U.S. economy in the 2nd quarter of 2020. This means that China’s economy, heavily dependent upon exports, will see no economic rebound for quite some time. In the mean time, the Trump administration has “turbocharged” its effort to relocate global supply chains from China to markets less hostile to the West.

    Details on manufacturing and commerce imploding in Q1 snipped.

    This gives the Trump administration more ammunition in its attempts to move global supply chains away from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Reuters reported on Sunday:

    Now, economic destruction and the massive U.S. coronavirus death toll are driving a government-wide push to move U.S. production and supply chain dependency away from China, even if it goes to other more friendly nations instead, current and former senior U.S. administration officials said.

    “We’ve been working on [reducing the reliance of our supply chains in China] over the last few years but we are now turbo-charging that initiative,” Keith Krach, undersecretary for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment at the U.S. State Department told Reuters.

    The report describes a “whole-of-government” effort in which free trade advocates seem to be losing their struggle with China hawks inside the administration. Citing national security concerns, many departments have joined in the process to figure out how to incentivize U.S. firms to move their operations out of the Chinese mainland. Options reportedly include ‘reshoring’ subsidies, tax incentives, developing closer ties to Taiwan, and ever higher tariffs on goods produced in China.

  • China tells its government to get ready for possible war with the United States over the Wuhan coronavirus. As opposed to China’s illegal actions in Hong Kong or the South China Sea…
  • UC Davis shuts down commie-funded Confucius Institute. Only about 80 more to go.
  • Some universities are not so brave: “Harvard Canceled Human Rights Event as Its President Met With Xi Jinping.”

    Teng Biao, a former fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s human rights center, attempted to host a panel discussion on Chinese human rights issues in 2015. A vice dean at Harvard Law School, however, ordered him in February of that year to cancel the event because it would have been “embarrassing” for the university, according to Teng.

    “He called me into his office and he told me that the Harvard president was meeting Chinese president Xi Jinping,” Teng told the Washington Free Beacon. “It seems that for Harvard leaders, it was very embarrassing if we had a talk at Harvard about human rights issues in China when the Harvard president just came back from China after meeting with the Chinese president.”

    Teng is a human rights lawyer who fled China after authorities kidnapped and tortured him for his participation in the 2014 Hong Kong protests. Professor William P. Alford, a vice dean at the Harvard Law School, played a role in bringing Teng to Harvard. He also ordered Teng to cancel the event, according to the Harvard Crimson. Alford confirmed with the Free Beacon that he told Teng to postpone the event, a decision he made on his own accord, rather than at the administration’s urging. He said that he allowed Teng to host other events during his time at Harvard. While Teng did participate in other events, he said the panel discussion was never rescheduled.

    Evidently having a $40 billion endowment just isn’t enough to keep you from having to suck up to communist China…

  • Europe: “Hey China, want to help us create a vaccine for this coronavirus of yours?” China: “Go flu yourself!”
  • If you want to see exactly how China lies about the Wuhan Coronavirus, here’s an example:

    Compare those statements to this timeline to see everything they left out. (Hat tip: Neontaster.)

  • Speaking of propaganda:

  • Speaking of willing dupes: “POLITICO Peddles Red China Propaganda Attempting To Own Trump–Gets SLAMMED On Twitter.” “POLITICO promoted a piece praising the Chinese Communist Party’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak and blasting the Trump administration.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Sadly, foreign news outlets seem more immune to China’s influence than our own MSM:

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    Posted in Communism, Foreign Policy, Media Watch, Military | 1 Comment »

    Shermanpalooza!

    May 5th, 2020

    Not sooner do I start writing about Sherman tanks than suddenly all sorts of Sherman-related information starts popping up.

    First, here’s are two really detailed videos from Nicholas Moran, AKA The Chieftain, of the features of a Sherman M4A1:

    Second, Dwight sent me this twitter thread, that goes into a great deal of detail about how the Sherman’s later reputation for being Not So Great came almost entirely for the way they were deployed in roles they were not specialized for.

    Here’s a Tweet from that thread that talks about the weird (but highly effective) redesign that became the Sherman M4VC Firefly used by the British Army:

    (The way embedded tweets work is you’ll probably have to click on that to see the full meme.)

    The British 17 pounder/76.2mm gun used a much longer (and thus higher velocity) shell, powerful enough to take out a Tiger I from the front (though I don’t fancy its chances against the Tiger II), a gun about on par with the German 88mm L/56 on the Tiger I (but not the 88mm L/71 on the Tiger II).

    And speaking of the Firefly, Moran did a tour of the Firefly in these videos:

    And here’s Moran and Forgotten Weapons host Ian McCollum joining forces to fire the weapon systems on a Sherman:

    Finally, it being the Internet, there’s a site dedicated to Sherman tanks. This myths about Shermans post is particularly interesting.

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    BidenWatch for May 4, 2020

    May 4th, 2020

    Is the Tara Reade rape allegation going to be the silver bullet that drops Biden? It seemed unlikely when the story first broke, but just enough supporting evidence has come to light, and just enough Democrats not acting like total hypocrites and supporting an investigation into the charges, that the scandal won’t go away.

    Oh, and New York just threw Bernie Sanders off the ballot. Funny how things like that happen when you cross the DNC. It’s this week’s BidenWatch!

  • Another witness who heard Tara Reade talk about being sexually harassed by Biden.
  • Reade wants Biden to released his sealed senate records.
  • The Washington Post called on Biden to address the Tara Reade accusations and release his records.
  • Cracks in the blue wall?

    The New York Times follows up the Tara Reade story with news that activist women’s groups and key Democratic officials have not remained entirely silent about the allegation of sexual assault. Over the last three weeks, those groups have pressed Joe Biden to speak out and deal with Reade’s allegations, and they have held their fire after being promised action.

    Now, however, they’re tired of getting strung along — and may soon make their unhappiness public:

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • A quick recap of the evidence:

  • Potential veep pick Sen. Kamala Harris believed Biden’s accusers in 2019.
  • Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen “Lockdown” Whitmer saysnot every sexual assault claim is equal. Of course she does; her party has always treated those against someone with a (D) after their name as unworthy of investigation.
  • Women’s groups on Biden accuser Tara Reade: “Who?”
  • Nancy Pelosi’s Brett Kavanaugh opinions updated for Joe Biden. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • “Reade Says Complaint Would Prove Biden Aides Dennis Toner And Ted Kaufman Lied About Not Knowing Her.”
  • “Senate Democrats Refuse To Acknowledge Sexual Assault Accusations Against Joe Biden.”
  • Can you still hear it, Tara? The Silence of the Dems?
  • “U of Delaware Must Release Biden Senate Records Amid #MeToo Scandal, FOIA Request Demands.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • TeamBiden lied enough that even the New York Times got miffed:

  • Speaking of the New York Times, they suggested the DNC assemble a team to go through Biden’s papers. DNC: “You’re high.”
  • More on that subject:

  • Speaking of the DNC, New York just removed Bernie Sanders from the ballot for the June 28 primary.

  • Powers of 10, how do they work? (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Biden tosses more word salad. Will he get tossed by the DNC?

  • And sometimes he doesn’t even speak at all:

  • The Biden-Kavanaugh double standard:

    The operative question for many in the press as they assess Tara Reade’s assault allegation against Joe Biden is the correct one: Is Tara Reade telling the truth? It does not matter what other senators may or may not have done to other women in other places or at other times. It does not matter — for purposes of establishing Joe Biden’s culpability — whether the Long Arc of History Bends toward Justice, whether other women who look like Tara Reade were assaulted by men who look like Joe Biden, or whether it would facilitate a more equitable future if we jettisoned Joe Biden, guilt be damned. What seems to matter to the media, for purposes of assessing Biden’s candidacy, is whether then-senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. digitally penetrated Tara Reade in 1993.

    But this, crucially, is not what mattered to these same media players when then-judge Brett Kavanaugh was accused of assault, then indecent exposure, then gang rape in a series of successively more lurid allegations. What mattered then were not only the merits of Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation — and that’s Dr. Ford, to you — but also the behavior of parties completely unrelated to those allegedly involved in the assault, parties who, by accident of birth, happened to look like Brett Kavanaugh, grow up like Brett Kavanaugh, and inhabit the “world of privilege” that Kavanaugh allegedly inhabited.

    Joe Biden is being treated as an individual — a man being accused of a specific crime that either did, or did not, occur. Brett Kavanaugh was treated as a totem — an antihero, an anti-messianic stand-in for all of History’s various Straight White Men who “got away with it,” who were cushioned from the vagaries of life by their unthinkable “privilege,” lashing out against the browning of America and the long-prophesied end of the Old Boys’ Club.

  • Biden wants the benefit-of-the-doubt, innocent-until-proven-guilty standard that he helped deny male college students.

    The problem with defending due process in a case like Biden’s with respect to Tara Reade is that Biden himself, when it comes to allegations of sexual abuse and harassment, doesn’t believe in it. Perhaps in part to atone for his shabby treatment of Anita Hill, Biden was especially prominent in the Obama administration’s overhaul of Title IX treatment of claims of sexual discrimination and harassment on campus. You can listen to Biden’s strident speeches and rhetoric on this question and find not a single smidgen of concern with the rights of the accused. Men in college were to be regarded as guilty before being proven innocent, and stripped of basic rights in their self-defense.

    Harvard Law professor Jeannie Suk Gersen noted the consequences of Biden’s crusade in The New Yorker last year. “In recent years,” she wrote, “it has become commonplace to deny accused students access to the complaint, the evidence, the identities of witnesses, or the investigative report, and to forbid them from questioning complainants or witnesses … According to K.C. Johnson, a professor at Brooklyn College and an expert on Title IX lawsuits, more than four hundred students accused of sexual misconduct since 2011 have sued their schools under federal or state laws — in many cases, for sex discrimination under Title IX. While many of the lawsuits are still ongoing, nearly half of the students who have sued have won favorable court rulings or have settled with the schools.”

    On Friday’s Morning Joe, Biden laid out a simple process for judging him: Listen respectfully to Tara Reade, and then check for facts that prove or disprove her specific claim. The objective truth, Biden argued, is what matters. I agree with him. But this was emphatically not the standard Biden favored when judging men in college. If Biden were a student, under Biden rules, Reade could file a claim of assault, and Biden would have no right to know the specifics, the evidence provided, who was charging him, who was a witness, and no right to question the accuser. Apply the Biden standard for Biden, have woke college administrators decide the issue in private, and he’s toast.

    Under Biden, Title IX actually became a force for sex discrimination — as long as it was against men. Emily Yoffe has done extraordinary work exposing the injustices of the Obama-Biden sexual-harassment regime on campus, which have mercifully been pared back since. But she has also highlighted Biden’s own zeal in the cause. He brushed aside most legal defenses against sexual harassment. In a speech at the University of Pittsburgh in 2016, for example, Biden righteously claimed that it was an outrage that any woman claiming sexual assault should have to answer questions like “Were you drinking?” or “What did you say?” “These are questions that angered me then and anger me now.” He went on: “No one, particularly a court of law, has a right to ask any of those questions.”

    Particularly a court of law? A court cannot even inquire what a woman said in a disputed sexual encounter? Couldn’t that be extremely relevant to the question of consent? Or ask if she were drinking? It may be extremely salient that she had been drinking — because it could prove rape, if she were incapacitated and unable to consent and sex took place. But Biden’s conviction that young men on campus should be legally handicapped in defending themselves from charges of sexual abuse occluded any sense of basic fairness.

  • Consistency, Democratic Party style:

  • Meanwhile, if the DNC does whack Biden off the ticket, Grandma Death is ready for the call.
  • Speaking of which, those two titans of charisma were palling around on video:

    

  • Who best to vet female VP candidates? Would you believe Chris “Waitress Sandwich” Dodd?
  • Twitchy has some thoughts on that.
  • Early Presidential race dropout California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell thinks Reade’s claim should be investigated. How many of you had “Eric Swalwell” on your Biden Scandal Bingo cards? Now put your hands down you damn liars!
  • “Big money donors are pressuring Joe Biden against picking Elizabeth Warren for VP: ‘He would lose the election.'” For once, big donors and Bernie Bros are on the same page…
  • “Blue-check feminist who was AOK with innocent men losing jobs over false allegations believes Tara Reade but still voting Biden.”

  • How desperate are Democrats? Desperate enough to float a Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama ticket, Constitution be damned. (The author’s attempt to tapdance around the constitutional issue should cause thousands of legal scholars to faceplam themselves.)
  • “‘I Have Never Treated A Woman Inappropriately,’ Joe Biden Whispers Into Journalist’s Ear.”
  • “Biden Attempts To Win Over Youth With Appearance On ‘The Ed Sullivan Show.'”
  • “Judge Dismisses Sexual Assault Allegations Against Biden On Grounds That He Is Not A Republican.”
  • Heh:

  • Heh 2:

  • Titania McGrath weighs in:
    

    • Like BidenWatch? Consider hitting the tip jar:





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    Marine Littoral Combat Regiment?

    May 3rd, 2020

    In something of a follow-up to news that the Marine Corps is eliminating its tank regiments over the next decade, there are plans afoot to develop and field a Marine Littoral Combat regiment

    The Marine Corps’ current force design conversations and planning will help develop the littoral regiment concept, Stephenson said.

    If the past few months of public appearances by Berger and his top generals are any indication, a littoral regiment would likely find itself in the III Marine Expeditionary Force, headquartered in Okinawa, Japan, and consist of small teams of Marines armed with a host of unmanned air, ground and maritime assets along with long range fires and air defense systems.

    Sounds like the Marines are going to go heavy into drones.

    While details are not yet available, a regiment is a sizable unit to form in a limited manpower Marine Corps.

    An infantry regiment can include up to nearly 2,200 Marines divided into three battalions along with a headquarters and support company, depending on the mission and configuration.

    But there are different configurations for a regiment. The Corps also staffs combat logistics regiments to provide transport, communication and logistics assets to the ground combat forces.

    In October 2019, Brig. Gen. Benjamin Watson said that the Corps was “no longer going to stick or take an uncompromising position on the sanctity of the MAGTF,” [Marine Air-Ground Task Force, a basic Marine organizational structure since 1963] while speaking at the National Defense Industrial Association’s Expeditionary Warfare Conference in Annapolis, Maryland.

    “If what is needed is a piece of the Marine Corps that is not organized like a MAGTF or a capability the Marine Corps can bring that is not a MAGTF, then we are not too proud to provide that,” he said.

    A retired Marine Corps officer now a senior adviser for the Center for Strategic & International Studies shared analysis at the same conference showing “no growth” for personnel in future Marine budget planning.

    “Coastal defense, cyber, space,” Mark Cancian said. “They will have to take down existing capabilities to find the structure and the space to do that.”

    I rather doubt the Marines are going to field localized cyberwarfare units out in combat regiments beyond some basic signal corps countermeasures. I suspect we already have a cyberwarfare unit up and running out of one or more three initial agencies in the greater D.C. area.

    The Corps will need to cut and shift priorities for the next fight, Berger said at a November Marine Corps Association and Foundation dinner.

    “We may need to get smaller, trade some parts we’ve had for a long time but are not a good fit for the future,” Berger said.

    He looked to reduce or eliminate money going toward manned anti-armor ground and aviation platforms, manned and traditional towed artillery that can’t shoot hypervelocity rounds and short range mortar systems.

    All other efforts are leaning into conducting sea control and sea denial operations from the sea and maritime terrain, he said.

    To make that happen, the commandant said that he wants low cost, lethal air and ground unmanned platforms, unmanned long range surface and subsurface vehicles, mobile, rapidly deployable rocket systems, long range precision fires, loitering munitions across the echelons, mobile air defense and counter-precision guided munitions capabilities, signature management, electronic warfare and expeditionary airfields. [“Signature management,” in this context, means controlling your electronic emissions and observables. “To be detected is to be targeted is to be killed.”]

    And it appears, the Marine littoral regiment may be the formation for many of those new capabilities and manpower.

    All this seems both forward-looking and also very amorphous. It suggests “we’re adjusting our force mix to better face off against China, but we’re not sure quite how yet.” But China is just one part of the equation; the furious pace of technological change, budget pressures, and long simmering doctrinal debates all seem to be additional change drivers.

    It’s also interesting that they’re using the word “littoral,” as the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship program was hardly a smashing success.

    Great power military conflicts of the future are likely to use weapons smarter, more autonomous, more lethal and probably lower cost than the weapons systems we’ve built our combat forces around today. Taking and holding contested shorelines is probably going to look less like Iwo Jima and more like battles between rival autonomous drone swarms.

    The question is how long it will take to get to that technological plateau, and what the Marine Corps will look like during the transition.

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    Posted in Military | 3 Comments »

    The History of Firearms Development Part 1

    May 2nd, 2020

    This Borepatch post got me thinking about the history of firearms development, and all the mistakes and blind alleys along the way. Plus I wanted to put up videos (where available) of how some of the weird firearms Borepatch described actually worked.

    But before I did that, I realized I needed to delve into the basics of gunpowder and early firearms development, to set out things in chronological order.

    Here’s a short one covering the invention of gunpowder in China, featuring primitive proto-firearms like the firelance, up through early European cannons, the hand-canon and the arquebus.

    Here’s a video of someone testing a home-built recreation firelance using bamboo. The first attempt does not go well, so they reinforced the bamboo on the second with electrical tape.

    A longer look at the development of early gunpowder weapons in Europe up through the early Napoleonic War:

    Highlights: the difficulty of getting saltpeter means Europeans needed to make it by boiling down animal waste, how “corning” vastly increased the power of gunpowder, how they made cannon bodies out of strips of metal bound with iron hoops (why they’re still know today as bun barrels), and how the Pumhart von Steyr is the largest siege cannon still existent, firing stones that weighed 1,533 pounds. Also, Henry Knox, George Washington’s master of artillery, was by profession a bookseller of military history. And the exploding shell was invented by British Lieutenant Henry Shrapnel.

    A short look at gun development from the hand-cannon to the musket:

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    Posted in Guns, Military, video | 1 Comment »

    LinkSwarm for May 1 , 2020

    May 1st, 2020

    Happy Victims of Communism Day. Texas is reopening, California is closing beaches, and we contemplate the mysteries of Sweden and Denmark.

  • Director Blue sent me this comparison of Wuhan coronavirus curves in various countries. The point of the piece was that Sweden, which hasn’t practiced social distancing, is doing better than European countries that have. However, what I find most interesting is that Denmark seems to be doing even better. Anyone know the reason?
  • Speaking of Denmark, they haven’t seen any sort of uptick in cases since they reopened.
  • “New York Required Nursing Homes To Admit ‘Medically Stable’ Coronavirus Patients. The Results Were Deadly.”

    On March 25, New York’s Health Department issued a mandate that state nursing homes could not refuse COVID-19-positive patients who were “medically stable,” meaning facilities that housed the most vulnerable populations were forced to introduce the virus into their midst.

    A nursing home in Queens received two coronavirus patients who had been discharged from a hospital (but were still contagious and in need of care) – along with a box containing body bags, The New York Post reported. An executive at the facility told the Post it had been free of the coronavirus prior to accepting those two patients. The executive also said that along with the two patients arrived a shipment of personal protective equipment and the body bags.

    “My colleague noticed that one of the boxes was extremely heavy. Curious as to what could possibly be making that particular box so much heavier than the rest, he opened it,” the executive told the Post. “The first two coronavirus patients were accompanied by five body bags.”

    The Post reported that within days, “three of the bags were filled with the first of 30 residents who would die there.” The nursing facility continued to receive shipments of five body bags per week since those first two patients arrived – and they have been needed.

    “Cuomo has blood on his hands. He really does. There’s no way to sugarcoat this,” the nursing home executive told the outlet. “Why in the world would you be sending coronavirus patients to a nursing home, where the most vulnerable population to this disease resides?”

  • Speaking Cuomo scandals, here’s a look back at the Buffalo Billions crony graft scandal.
  • What the hell? “NYPD telling cops to prioritize 311 calls over 911.” “People getting jumped, robbed, assaulted…doesn’t matter.” How do you expect NYPD to deal with assault when there are so many people standing only five feet apart?

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • While Texas is starting to reopen the economy today, California Governor Gavin Newsom is closing down the beach. This is what happens when your governor is Stuck On Stupid.
  • YouTube censors California doctors for daring to disagree with Democratic politicians.
  • Georgia lifts the stay-at-home order.
  • “California Prisons Release Thousands Of Felons To Make Room For Skaters, Surfers, People Who Go Outside.”
  • Are overall American death rates in the United States actually down due to the coronavirus?

    Low fatality rates for 2020 are, at this point, a mystery. However, assuming I am reading the CDC spread sheet correctly, one thing is clear: there are nowhere near as many deaths actually caused by COVID-19 as government sources claim. If the Wuhan flu had really killed 40,000 or so people who would not otherwise have died over the last 14 weeks, it would be obvious in the overall mortality statistics. The fact that no such effect is visible–that, astonishingly, the death rate has actually declined–is consistent only with the assumption that not many people have died from COVID-19 who would not have died anyway, at about the same time.

  • In the land of Blue-on-Blue violence, Michael Moore has produced a new documentary out that takes on environmental green-washing. (The full film can be found here.)
  • Politico admits that a President Trump/Bank of China hit piece was completely false.
  • “I’m not saying it’s aliens, but…” (Previously.)
  • Kentucky’s Democratic Governor Andy Beshear slams somebody for filing for unemployment under the name “Tupac Shakur.” Tiny problem: that’s the guy’s real name.
  • How Democrats suppressed Republican votes in Wisconsin.
  • “Two Americas: Karens and Everybody Else.”
  • Nailed it:

  • Whoa:

  • Flashback to 2016 and Kat Timpf at The Gathering of the Juggalos.
  • Dolly Parton the vampire slayer.
  • “YouTube Removing All Videos That Don’t Begin With The Chinese National Anthem.”
  • Your daily “Awwww”:

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections, Texas, Waste and Fraud | No Comments »

    Tomorrow is Victims of Communism Day

    April 30th, 2020

    Remember that tomorrow is May 1st, which means that once again it’s time to observe Victims of Communism Day, as the victims of a brutal ideology that killed over 100 million people deserve their own day of remembrance.

    VictimsofCommunismDay

    Here’s a list of memorials to the victims of communism. Some I’ve linked before, some I haven’t. I was unaware that they had unveiled a memorial to the Holodomor in Washington, D.C.

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    Posted in Communism | No Comments »

    A Farewell to Marine Tanks?

    April 29th, 2020

    Evidently the Marine Corps is going to shed all its tank units over the next decade.

    In the next decade, the Marine Corps will no longer operate tanks or have law enforcement battalions. It will also have three fewer infantry units and will shed about 7% of its overall force as the service prepares for a potential face-off with China.

    The Marine Corps is cutting all military occupational specialties associated with tank battalions, law enforcement units and bridging companies, the service announced Monday. It’s also reducing its number of infantry battalions from 24 to 21 and cutting tiltrotor, attack and heavy-lift aviation squadrons.

    The changes are the result of a sweeping months-long review and war-gaming experiments that laid out the force the service will need by 2030. Commandant Gen. David Berger directed the review, which he has called his No. 1 priority as the service’s top general.

    “Developing a force that incorporates emerging technologies and a significant change to force structure within our current resource constraints will require the Marine Corps to become smaller and remove legacy capabilities,” a news release announcing the changes states.

    By 2030, the Marine Corps will drop down to an end strength of 170,000 personnel. That’s about 16,000 fewer leathernecks than it has today.

    In a certain way it makes sense, as the Marine Corps is a branch of the Navy and focused on amphibious operations, and you can’t fit a lot of M1A2 Abrams tanks on a Wasp class amphibious assault ship. On the other hand, the Marine 1st Tank Battalion predates Pearl Harbor. That’s a lot of tradition to leave behind.

    The decision to de-emphasize rotor craft (presumably both helicopters and the V-22 Osprey) is also interesting, especially since the Marines are the only users of the new AH-1Z Viper.

    “The future Fleet Marine Force requires a transformation from a legacy force to a modernized force with new organic capabilities,” it adds. “The FMF in 2030 will allow the Navy and Marine Corps to restore the strategic initiative and to define the future of maritime conflict by capitalizing on new capabilities to deter conflict and dominate inside the enemy’s weapon engagement zone.”

    Existing infantry units are going to get smaller and lighter, according to the plan, “to support naval expeditionary warfare, and built to facilitate distributed and Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations.”

    The Marine Corps will also create three littoral regiments that are organized, trained and equipped to handle sea denial and control missions. The news release describes the new units as a “Pacific posture.” Marine expeditionary units, which deploy on Navy ships, will augment those new regiments, the release adds.

    In addition to more unmanned systems and long-range fire capabilities, the Marine Corps also wants a new light amphibious warship and will invest in signature management, electronic warfare and other systems that will allow Marines to operate from “minimally developed locations.”

    Berger has called China’s buildup in the South China Sea and Asia-Pacific region a game changer for the Navy and Marine Corps. He has pushed for closer integration between the sea services, as the fight shifts away from insurgent groups in the Middle East and to new threats at sea.

    Part of the reason for Marines getting rid of tank sis their increasing vulnerability to precision weapons systems:

    Tanks and armored vehicles have had trouble surviving against the threat of precision strike and the plethora of drone and reconnaissance systems flooding conflict zones across the Middle East.

    For recent evidence, a Turkish launched operation targeting Syrian regime army troops in late February decimated more than a hundred tanks and armored vehicles, dozens of artillery pieces and hundreds of Syrian forces, according to the Turkish National Ministry of Defense.

    Turkey posted videos highlighting a mixed role of drones, Paladin artillery systems and aircraft pounding Syrian armor from the skies over the course of several days. The Syrian army appeared helpless to defend from the onslaught of long range systems. Even tanks camouflaged by buildings and bushes were no match for sensors and thermal imaging watching from the skies.

    The problem is exacerbated by the number of sophisticated anti-tank systems flooding counterinsurgency conflicts across the globe and access to long range drones once only in control by state actors are now being operated by militia groups.

    In Libya, the Libyan National Army has the upper hand in its drone war with the UN-backed Tripoli government. It’s equipped with an alleged UAE-supplied Chinese drone known as the Wing Long II that boasts a 2,000 km range through a satellite link and is reportedly armed with Chinese manufactured Blue Arrow 7 precision strike air-to-surface missiles.

    So it once again gets back to China.

    In a way it’s heartening that the U.S. military is preparing to fight the next war rather than remain stuck in the paradigms of the last one. But history shows that the next war has way of popping up where we didn’t expect it. U.S. and Soviet armor never faced off in the Fulda Gap, and in 1989, no one was expecting U.S. forces to be fighting in Iraq.

    We still have the best military in the world, I just hope we retain the tactical and strategic flexibility to meet all the challenges of the 21st century.

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    Posted in Military | 2 Comments »

    Gov. Abbott Unveils Plan To Reopen Texas

    April 28th, 2020

    After much criticism from conservative activists that he was moving too slowly to reopen the Texas economy, Governor Greg Abbott has finally unveiled his plan to do just that.

    Governor Greg Abbott today announced the first phase of the State of Texas’ ongoing plan to safely and strategically open Texas while minimizing the spread of COVID-19. Under Phase I, certain services and activities are allowed to open with limited occupancy, and the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) is issuing minimum standard health protocols for all businesses and individuals to follow. The Governor also outlined special guidance for Texans over 65 and detailed a comprehensive mitigation plan for nursing homes in Texas. The Governor also announced a statewide testing and tracing program developed by DSHS that will help public health officials quickly identify and test Texans who contract COVID-19 and mitigate further spread of the virus.

    The Governor’s announcement is accompanied by Texans Helping Texans: The Governor’s Report to Open Texas. This detailed report, available on the strike force website, helps Texans understand phase one by outlining the new protocols, guidance, and recommendations. The report also includes a series of Open Texas Checklists that outline DSHS’ minimum standard health protocols for all Texans.

    “This strategic approach to opening the state of Texas prioritizes the health and safety of our communities and follows the guidelines laid out by our team of medical experts,” said Governor Abbott. “Now more than ever, Texans must remain committed to safe distancing practices that reduce the spread of COVID-19, and we must continue to rely on doctors and data to provide us with the safest strategies to restore Texans’ livelihoods. We must also focus on protecting the most vulnerable Texans from exposure to COVID-19. If we remain focused on protecting the lives of our fellow Texans, we can continue to open the Lone Star State.”

    By way of Executive Order (GA-18), all retail stores, restaurants, movie theaters, and malls are permitted to reopen on Friday, May 1. These services must limit their capacity to 25% of their listed occupancy. Within shopping malls, the food-court dining areas, play areas, and interactive displays and settings must remain closed.

    All museums and libraries may open under the same 25% occupancy limitation, but interactive areas of museums must remain closed. State libraries and museums will open by May 1, and local public museums and libraries may reopen only if permitted by the local government. Single-person offices may reopen as well.

    Churches and places of worship remain open. Outdoor sports are allowed to resume so long as no more than four participants are playing together at one time. Certain social distancing practices must also be followed. Local government operations, including county and municipal government operations relating to permitting, recordation, and document-filing services, may reopen as determined by the local government.

    DSHS has recommended minimum standard health protocols for all individuals, all employers and employees, as well as industry-specific protocols for retailers, retail customers, restaurants, restaurant patrons, movie theaters, movie theater customers, museums and libraries, museum and library visitors, outdoor sports participants, single-person offices, and low COVID-19 counties. These protocols are outlined in the Open Texas Checklists within the Governor’s report beginning on page 20.

    Essential services such as farmers and ranchers, grocery and drug stores, banks, and gas stations will continue to operate. Public swimming pools, bars, gyms, cosmetology salons, massage establishments, interactive amusement venues, such as bowling alleys and video arcades, and tattoo and piercing studios will remain closed through Phase I. Nursing homes, state supported living centers, assisted living facilities, and long-term care facilities must remain closed to visitors unless to provide critical assistance.

    The Governor also established increased occupancy protocols for certain counties with five or fewer laboratory confirmed cases of COVID-19. Those counties may, on an individualized basis, increase occupancy limits to up to 50% for restaurants, retail, shopping malls, museums and libraries, and movie theaters if they meet certain criteria. The county judge must certify and affirm to DSHS that the following standards have been investigated and confirmed to be met:

    1. The county had five or fewer COVID-19 laboratory confirmed cases on April 30, 2020 or, at a later date, five or fewer active COVID-19 cases as verified by DSHS.
    2. The county has created a list of testing opportunities in the county or the area.
    3. The county has been in contact with its designated regional advisory council to ensure the community is prepared for any needed health care transfers.
    4. The county has provided public notice to the residents of the county, including: Signs and symptoms of COVID-19: Recommended health and safety protocols in line with CDC guidance; Information regarding how residents can get tested in the area; A link to the DSHS website where residents can go to learn about community spread in nearby communities, in order to help county residents understand their risk to exposure if they travel regularly outside of the county.
    5. The county has contacted each of the following types of facilities located in the county to ensure they are complying with Texas Health and Human Services (HHSC) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines regarding COVID-19: Nursing homes; Assisted living facilities; Industrial, agricultural, or business facilities with a significant number of employees; and City or county jails.
    6. The county is equipped and prepared to protect vulnerable populations, including nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
    7. The county has documented procedures to be activated if a resident becomes COVID-19 positive, including procedures to take appropriate measures as necessary in line with the plan to open Texas.
    8. The county has contacted DSHS in order to create a plan to ensure contact tracing will occur within 48 hours of a positive test reported to DSHS.

    Phase I will begin Friday May 1 and continue until at least May 18. The Governor will continue to evaluate next steps for the state.

    I like the fact that there’s some movement to reopen the economy, and that there’s finally a recognition that it’s stupid for Harris and Loving counties to be following the same rules. In fact, I’d prefer to see counties with no reported cases open up 100%.

    What I dislike is the institutional hypocrisy of imposing rules that no one is going to enforce. Do you think police are going to go around calculating capacity? “Hey! This place is 27% full! You, get out!”

    Outdoor sports with four people sounds like a pander to the golf set, although I suppose tennis, boxing and mixed martial arts would all qualify if it occurs outdoors, but five people playing Frisbee? Verboten!

    The restaurant patron guidelines have all the power of Austin Powers saying “Oh, behave!”

    I’m OK with continued nursing home guidelines.

    I would like to see more bias toward freedom in these guidelines and less toward ass-covering, with lots of guidelines that seem to be there just so Abbott and company can say “I told them to do X!” if infection rates start rising again.

    My guess is they won’t, based on the almost universal infection decline curve exhibited in various countries, and increasing evidence that sunlight/hard UV kills the virus. In fact, on that basis I’d like to see limited reopening of bars for outdoor service. Maybe in Phase 2?

    Texas has the second-best recovery rate from infection of any state:

    Our hospitals are not overwhelmed, so we have the capacity to handle an uptick in cases.

    Based on those metrics, I would have liked to see more boldness from Gov. Abbott than shown here. Abbott’s advisory board seems to be looking at the early (inaccurate) models rather than latter data.

    Still, an overly timid reopening is much better than no reopening at all…

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    Posted in Economics, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »

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