Unfinished Business
Photo credit, newsweek
Welcome back to the Washington place. Putting the place on the market fell back by two weeks, we just weren’t done with the stuff that needed to be done before the photographer could take pictures. So, we’re still charging hard to finish that unfinished business. Dinner tonight is probably going to be leftovers, Booze is in its normal place, as are soft drinks.
The tip jar is at the link. Thanks, as always to everyone who has chipped in. So let’s talk about other unfinished business.
I talked last week about the “Rent-a-Riot” companies out there, among other things. We’re seeing that in LA right now, I’m fairly sure. The trouble is that the basic illegal protestors nicknamed “the night shift” by several pundits, jumped on the band wagon, and I think the original protests got caught by surprise. They are NOT ready to start a full-fledged insurgency, and yet it looks like that’s the way things are heading.
I got hit with a question this morning on Quora, that I feel is pertinent, both in the fact that some mutt was asking this, and in my answer. So:
What would happen if US military personnel deployed in a large US urban center opened fire with live ammunition on the population? Wouldn't the population use their own weapons and tactics to utterly destroy the US military there?
My answer:
Well, that’s certainly one possibility.
The trouble is that the “large urban centers” usually don’t have the weapons and tactics you postulate. See, the cities are not exactly hotbeds of Second Amendment activists and participators. The gangs are armed, usually with handguns, often shitty handguns (Hi-point for example) some few long-arms, usually ARs or AKs, and very little in the way of proficiency. Nor do they have a lot of Vets to teach and stiffen the ranks.
I’ll point out that in one “large US Urban Center” an 18-year-old kid from the countryside kicked rioter ass, as an example. The rioters are proficient, and trained, in the use of mele weapons in an urban setting and facing cops with incredibly restricted ROEs.
That’s the Warfare version of boxing in a ring. “No hitting below the belt, no kicking, no biting, and your hands are in great big heavy gloves so that you can’t gouge an eyeball out even by accident, you can’t throat punch, etc. Oh and there’s a guy refereeing the event to make sure that you don’t hurt your opponent unduly.” (The rioter version of the ref is a judge.) it’s stylized, almost Kabuki Theater. Real war is a street fight with knives and guns by comparison.
Now let’s look at US Military forces, following the legal orders of the Commander in Chief in an urban setting.
1) As far as they are concerned, the people they are facing are foreign nationals in our nation illegally, and insurrectionists. (IE: enemies foreign, and domestic.)
2) The units sent in are most likely graduates of the various MOUT (Military Operations in Urban Terrain) schools; like the one that 40th ID runs, or the Marine Corps school at Pendleton.
3) They are trained and constantly retrained on working as a unit, and using all of the force and equipment of the US Soldier to kill the enemy.
All of that said, the military unit could be destroyed, **Battle of Mogadishu (1993) **comes to mind. That would, however, not bring about the result desired by the rioters. In fact, it would be the worst possible result for them. See, at that point, the evidence is indisputable. That area is “in revolt” and has just declared Civil War. Further, the countryside, the non “urban centers” IE where all the Second Amendment practitioners and most of the veterans live; will be solidly behind the idea of making that city into a desert and calling it “Peace.”
To win an insurgency against a nation, you must have the support, or at least indifference, of the populace, especially the ones with military training and guns. There are issues where the aforementioned groups would be behind an insurgency. The current issue that I assume you’re referring to (getting all the illegals out of the country) ain't one. In fact, those groups would be more likely to assist the military… (see also Roof Koreans)
There are other requirements to win an insurgency. You must have an area to retrain, re-equip and rest, that is hidden and protected from the enemy. There are such areas, in California in particular, the mountains to the east of LA are damn rough terrain for non-native troops. Unfortunately for the rioters, those areas are populated by people who would not have sympathy to their cause. Fleeing into Mexico to R-R&R would not help, if we assume a US Military unit has been wiped out by the guys waving Mexican and Honduran flags.
Fleeing to Mexico afterwards would create the perfect environment for a “Punitive Expedition” like Pershing ran in 1917, but with far more aggression. Yes, that would put the US at war with Mexico, that’s not exactly a fearful threat, and in fact, in some parts of the nation, that would be welcomed.
An insurgency must also have a fairly reliable source of supply. The rioters have a very reliable source that provides them with pallets of bricks, and gas masks, etc. Those supplies would be meaningless against a US Military who’s been told to take the gloves off and make this a street fight. Shipping stuff in from Mexico would bring about the same result as allowing the insurgents shelter in Mexico.
All evidence points to this having been a planned evolution on the part of the rioters. If that’s true, they pulled the trigger too early. They didn’t prepare the field, and they don’t have the support of the part of the nation that has the guns and training. Far from it, most of us, are, at this point, willing to allow federal forces to go “total war” on these hood-rats. Hell even the real gangs (like the Crips and the Bloods) aren’t supporting this shit, and the head of the gang in Compton has declared their turf a “riot free zone” and threatened to use deadly force on any rioter who decides to bring their little tea party into his area.
The best thing for their own movement that the rioters in LA and elsewhere could do, at this point, is to allow this thing to die quickly. keep the protests going for a day or two, just so it doesn’t look like they are submitting immediately to Trump’s response and then fade into the woodwork in the hopes that the 24-hour news cycle will find something else to talk about, and that this shit gets memory holed.
We shall see if they’re that smart, or if they double down on stupid this weekend. I don’t hold a lot of hope that they’ll do the smart thing, but you never know.
ABC News anchor for the local station called what was going on “just a bunch of people having fun watching cars burn.” Yeah, if you can wrap your mind around that…
Dug Ross had a brilliant commentary on this stuff over at Directorblue civil-unrest-inc it’s short, and there are some very effective graphs and charts, if that’s your learning style. Please go take a look.
The bad cat also has a piece at /assessing-the-los-angeles-icecapades? That is on point, he brings up the fact that most of the protest signs are professionally printed, and funded by The Party for Socialism and Liberation, (says so right on the sign.) That outfit self-identifies as “a revolutionary Socialist Party” who believes that “only a revolution can end capitalism and establish socialism.” In a ”surprising” reveal the “DataRepublican” showed that the NPO wing of these wannabe revolutionaries (CHIRLA standing for Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights LA) collected thirty four million dollars last year in government grants last year.
Your tax dollars going to fund this shit in LA, as well as the response to it… But that’s not the major funding, oh no, the biggest money is coming from a guy named Neville Roy Singham, who is apparently an operative for the Committee for State Security at the PRC.
Isn’t that just grand?
Go see the bad cat though, because he’s also got the goods on how the strategy is designed to unfold, based on their own internal training documents.
The plan is to put the government in a situation where they either do nothing, and look like idiots, or do something, and look like tyrants. This is already appearing, the press was running a bit about some protester trying to clean their babies face after it got pepper sprayed. We’re not supposed to ask why anyone would be stupid enough to bring their baby to a riot…
Trouble is, the joke is on them. I at least, am at the point where I don’t care if there’s women, children, and old folks involved. I’m ready, and I’m sure a lot of other people are too, to go Biblical (as in Old Testament) on these fuckers.
Tell the Marines “Your ROE is simple, tell them once to get on their faces. If they fail to do so, put them on their faces kinetically.)
On to other unfinished business:
In a 7-3 decision in DC of all places, the federal appellate court ruled that governments CAN be sued for lost rent due to eviction moratoriums. Darby Development Company Inc et al v. United States. This is HUGE.
If you’re not running on all cylinders this morning, let me break this down for you. A LOT of municipalities and even states, as well as, for a time, the Federal Government, told landlords that they couldn’t kick out renters for non-payment, due to COVID. People lost billions in income as a result of these orders. Now the courts say they can sue the government to recoup those losses. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-must-face-claims-over-pandemic-ban-residential-evictions-2025-06-06/ What this is going to do to various budgets, both municipal and national, remains to be seen, and of course this will almost inevitably end up before SCOTUS before being enforced. Keep tuned, this will be a major case nationally. Which makes it puzzling that it’s being kept so quiet.
Also being kept remarkably quiet on the federal front, is RFK’s firing of the entire board of the “Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.” Where it is making the news, it’s being held up as an example of the tyranny and out of control nature of Trump’s people. But here is the thing: Something else was kept quiet for too long. Per a quote from RFK in the Wall Street Journal (sorry, it’s behind a paywall)
In 2000 the House issued the results of an investigation of ACIP … found that enforcement of its conflict-of-interest rules was weak to nonexistent. Committee members regularly participated in deliberations and advocated products in which they had a financial stake. The CDC issued conflict-of-interest waivers to every committee member. Four out of eight ACIP members who voted in 1997 on guidelines for the Rotashield vaccine, subsequently withdrawn because of severe adverse events, had financial ties to pharmaceutical companies developing other rotavirus vaccines. A 2009 HHS inspector-general report echoed these findings. Few committee members completed full conflict-of-interest forms — 97% of them had omissions. The CDC took no significant action to remedy the omissions. These conflicts of interest persist. Most of ACIP’s members have received substantial funding from pharmaceutical companies, including those marketing vaccines.
Now isn’t it odd that we never heard about how this outfit, which tells the CDC who should get what vaccines, and what vaccines are safe, effective, and should be mandated… Is full of people who are making large amounts of money off of the vaccines that they are making rules on?
One of the board members who got pink-slipped, said: “Up until today, ACIP recommendations were the gold standard for what insurers should pay for, what providers should recommend, and what the public should look to.” It’s interesting to note that the panel has never once, EVER not recommended mandating a vaccine.
Isn’t it odd that these details aren’t getting any press? Why, it’s almost like the press doesn’t care about anything except “get Trump.” But nah, that can’t be true, we have the best press money can buy.
Ow, I just sprained my tongue.
Following up on even more unfinished business, it seems that yet another PRC scientist has been arrested for smuggling bio-material into the US meant for the U of M. Yes, this new gal is Chengxuan Han, a PHD student out of… Guess where… Wuhan China. This was supposedly “biological material related to Roundworms. Seems she’s been denied a travel visa to the US on two occasions previously. “She couldn’t answer basic questions about herself or her research.” According to State.
I can’t help but think it’s time to crawl up the University of Michigan’s ass with a microscope and see what else they’re involved in.
In the “you gotta be kidding me” File, we got:
Some idiot apparently SWATed Kash Patel’s house. Yes, they called 911 about a dangerous hostage, violent situation, at the house of THE DIRECTOR OF THE FBI. Can you imagine being one of the SWAT guys rolling up, to be greeted by the security team that I have no doubt surrounds Mr. Patel’s house?
“Hi, guys, I’m Special Agent Jones, this is Special Agent Smith, and we’re just wondering what you are doing rolling up on our Director’s house, like you’re prepared to make entry?”
“Uh, Director’s house? What-da-fuc?”
“You didn’t know? This is the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s house. So, what brings you here?”
“Uh, a mistake, obviously. We’re leaving now.”
Now of course, what probably actually happened, is that CENCOM entered the address of the report, and this giant flashing red screen popped up saying something like “Federal Restricted Address, Call this number!” and they called the number on the screen and got told who they were about to send a bunch of gun toting violence seeking guys to. At which point the call was dropped.
In International news, we have a piece that pops all the bullshit Gun Violence bubbles.
In Austria, a nation with some of the strictest gun laws outside of Japan and the UK, a 21-year-old took his legally purchased handgun and shotgun, and shot up a school, killing nine, then ending his own life. So much for “school shootings only happen in America” and “Gun control will keep bad people from getting guns.”
What makes it better is that the reporter for the BBC who’s name is (NO SHIT) Fanny Gasser, was vapor locked because “we are not living in America, we are living in Austria, which seems like a very safe space!”
Guess what sweetheart, violence, and crazy people are everywhere, if you’re not prepared to deal with it, people will die, and that sucks. But no amount of “feels” or “safe spaces” will stop it. The only thing that can stop a bad guy, or an insane guy, from committing violence on his fellow man, is a good guy ready to commit violence on the bad guy, and even then, it’s not guaranteed that no one except the bad guy will get hurt, it just increases the likelihood that the damage will be reduced.
This is something that Washington State can’t seem to get through their pointed little heads; they just put into law a requirement that you ask for a permit to be allowed to buy a gun. Permit being refusable for any or no reason, and requires a lot of hoops, and money, which will not be refunded if the permit is refused. I expect SCOTUS to stomp on this, but it will take four or five years, just to get to them, and in the meantime the law will be operational. After SCOTUS kicks this to the curb, the state will no doubt rewrite the law changing a couple of words, and re-instate it. Wash-rinse-repeat. Why I’m leaving this state, reason #556.
We also have Cologne Germany, which had to evacuate 20,000 residents, so that they could defuse three USAAF bombs from the Second World War.
Finally on the subject of WWII, my friend over at “OLD NFO” put out
I think i have ran into this story before, but it’s worth revisiting. It’s the story about how the RAF, RCAF, and eventually USAAF got involved in the most dramatic “Beer run” EVER. Go take a look, it’s short, and it’s fun.
QOTD: in the remarkably sane comments division: "I unapologetically stand for free speech, peaceful demonstrations, and immigration — but this is not that. This is anarchy and true chaos. My party loses the moral high ground when we refuse to condemn setting cars on fire, destroying buildings, and assaulting law enforcement." —Sen. John Fetterman (I’m starting to see Fetterman as being in the wrong party.)
Yours in Service,
William Lehman