A Quick Run Around the Web (5/28/2020)

"Five Armed Robberies Teach Us Lessons"--Active Self Protection (12 min.)

• A new Hump Day Reading List from Grant Cunningham. The three issues/articles this week are (1) should you intervene? (2) beware the self-defense/firearm instructor insists you have to change your whole lifestyle, and (3) a look at preparing for tornadoes. Back to the second issue, a key point raised in the article to which Cunningham links:

       In the real world, however, time, money, and resources are limited.  It’s easy to talk a big game about how your students or followers need to TRAIN EVERY DAY. It’s much more difficult to sit down with them, looking over their monthly family budget, and figure out how to pay for that.  I’ve noticed a trend where internet personalities like to make bold, declarative statements that amount to “the lifestyle I live is what you need to do to survive.  Anything less is not enough.”

     If you encounter this, you have to ask yourself, are they selling reality-based training, or are they selling a lifestyle? If their lifestyle doesn’t seem to work for you, does that mean you’re wrong and that you need to change?  Is their lifestyle something you are able to emulate?  Do you want to emulate it?

• "Top Tactical Shotgun Trends"--Shooting Illustrated. The three major trends are (1) the short "not-a-shotgun" firearms like the Tac-14 and Shockwave, (2) semi-automatic shotguns using detachable box magazines and/or (3) in a bull-pup configuration.

• Related: "New for 2020: Escort BTS Bullpup"--American Rifleman. A cool-looking 12-gauge bullpup shotgun from HatsanUSA.

• Related: "Quick Look: New Interordnance Bullpup Shotgun"--Range 365. Another semi-auto bullpup shotgun.

• "SELCO: The COVID Pandemic in the Balkans Was a Reminder of Survival Mode"--Organic Prepper. A look at how people and governments reacting in the Balkans.
• "Editor’s Notebook: The Need to be Discreet"--Tactical Wire. The author writes:

       For a few years, I’d been somewhat obsessed with truly deep concealment. Part of this was prompted by an enquiry we’d received a few years ago – and we responded to with a few features. While we addressed the original – truly deep concealment without being able to use a belt – I knew that I had some age-related medical issues arising. I took this as an opportunity to learn more and to actually test one method to arrange for my own defense. While the actual testing of the concept took a few years – and has been incrementally reported on the wires over time – now I’m in the place I can look back and put the process in context.

      The range of my medical appointments included a considerable stretch of several-times-per-week therapy in a non-permissive environment with monitor leads patched on the thorax by medical staff and by doing activities during those appointments. For all those who issue the pithy advice to “dress around the gun,” I can only say “there’s no need to frighten the horses.” For those who had to sell me on the travails of those employed in NPEs and the fact that normal service/service-compact sized guns can’t successfully be worn discreetly when you’re around the same people all day, every day, doing all the office stuff – thanks for the warning. It helped me get ready.

The author ultimately settled on the Ruger LCP II 380 to be carried in a Galco Stow-N-Go Clip-On IWB holster. 

• Glock Perfection: "Upgrading the Glock G48 Pistol"--Shooting Illustrated. 
• "Rifle Sling Positions: Low Ready, Retention and High Ready"--The Firearm Blog. With illustrations.
• "Frangible Ammo for the Win"--Guns America. The author looks at modern frangible ammunition and makes an argument for using it for hunting or self-defense.
• "Time to Revive the Roast Chicken: Cooking a whole bird is easy—plus you might not have a choice"--Washington Free Beacon. An excerpt:

With many restaurants still closed, Americans have turned in droves to home cooking—whether they wanted to or not. The transition has not been smooth. Coronavirus infections have disrupted supply chains, forcing nearly 50 meat processing plants to shut down nationwide. And it's not just beef and pork: "Boneless chicken is first to go scarce as coronavirus hits U.S. meat supply," Fortune reported last month. Bad enough there's a shortage of chicken—but boneless chicken? What's left for us to cook?

The goes through his experience with cooking a whole chicken, recommending Michael Ruhlman's cookbook, From Scratch: 10 Meals, 175 Recipes, and Dozens of Techniques You Will Use Over and Over. 

• "30-06 M2 AP Armor Piercing Penetration Tests"--Pew Pew Tactical. 
• ".45 Colt, .44 Special, .38 Super (Old-School Gunfighters and Hunters)"--Sky Above Us. The article looks at these three cartridges when first adopted, the performance from modern loadings, and what lessons they cartridges offer, as well as their use in the modern setting. An excerpt:

      Less than a decade after the American Civil War ended, the U.S. Army decided to catch up to firearm technology’s leading edge. They set aside the Colt Model 1860 Army percussion revolver and searched for a breach-loaded, metallic cartridge gun. The men who would decide what would follow were themselves combat veterans. They had fought and survived the bloodiest battles in U.S. history. When it came to stopping a man bent on killing you at close range, they knew first-hand what worked and what didn’t.

      These hardened soldiers understood handguns were not powerful weapons compared to rifles. They found, over time, a certain power level provided a reasonable balance between lethality and recoil control.

      The .44 caliber Model 1860 Army revolver is, by our standards, a .45 caliber weapon, and it in fact used 140 grain, .454-inch diameter, cast lead balls, or 200 grain, .451-inch conical lead bullets.

      Propelled by a thirty grain black powder charge, balls left the muzzle around 900 - 1000 feet per second which produced 252 – 311 foot-pounds energy. The conical bullet had a muzzle velocity about 100 fps slower, on average, which gave 284 – 360 ft-lbs. Almost every military or police handgun produced since then has generated between 300 and 450 ft-lbs. muzzle energy. There’s a recurring theme here. This energy range just works. It is well suited to self-defense use by individuals with the training levels found in the military or law enforcement.

• Related: "Ammo Review: SIG SAUER .44 Special 200gr V-Crown JHP"--The Truth About Guns.

       I received a 10% FBI gel block from Clear Ballistics for this section of my testing. The rounds were fired into the gel at a self-defense distance of twenty feet.

      The mild recoil would make you think that this round would simply bounce off a bad guy, but that is hardly the case. Penetration in bare gel was deep, with rounds passing completely through while expanding at a depth of about 3”. The expanded bullets were wide, creating permanent wound channels about .55” wide.

     Penetration through standard fabric, denim, and leather was also great, although in some of the heaviest layers and materials the bullets slightly deformed, but still expanded. Penetration depth was 14-16” in these conditions, with many bullets still passing completely through.

• "How Terminal Ballistics Helps You Choose the Right Ammunition"--NRA Family. An excerpt:

Striking Energy

       As a bullet strikes, then penetrates, the target, it transfer some or all of its kinetic energy to the target. As the bullet penetrates, the kinetic energy performs work by deforming the target and the bullet. Since energy is defined as the capacity to do work, bullet kinetic energy at impact is widely used as a measure of cartridge power. The striking energy of a bullet is normally expressed in the number of foot-pounds (ft.-lbs.) or Joules. 

      While a bullet's muzzle energy is often used for ballistic comparisons, the striking energy of a bullet is a more realistic measure of ballistic potential. However, the striking energy a bullet retains downrange is not necessarily proportional to its muzzle energy.

Striking Velocity

       As a bullet travels downrange, it continuously sheds velocity. Striking velocity is the velocity of a bullet on impact with the target, and it will always be less than the muzzle velocity. In general, the higher the striking velocity, the better. Striking velocity affects terminal performance of the bullet in several ways:

• Striking velocity determines bullet energy on impact;

• Striking energy varies directly with bullet weight; and

• Striking energy varies as the square of velocity.

In other words, a change in bullet striking velocity will have a much greater effect on bullet striking energy than a proportional change in bullet weight. Doubling bullet weight doubles bullet striking energy, whereas doubling bullet striking velocity quadruples striking energy. At initial impact and penetration, a bullet creates a localized area of high pressure that rapidly displaces target material outward from the impact point. As the bullet penetrates, it creates a permanent wound path. As it does so, it may expand or tumble, considerably increasing the size of the permanent wound path. Bullet fragments, bits of bone and pieces of clothing can become secondary projectiles that can damage tissue at a distance from the point of impact.

      In addition, the shock wave from bullet impacts greater than 2,000 feet per second (f.p.s.) may create a temporary wound cavity in the tissue of a live target. The higher the bullet's striking velocity, the larger the temporary wound cavity...which can stretch or tear blood vessels, nerves and other tissues outside the bullet track.

• "First-Time Gun Buyers Explain How Coronavirus Changed Their Politics"--The Washington Free Beacon. From the article:

      Scott Kane went 38 years without ever touching a gun. That streak would have continued had it not been for the coronavirus. In March, fearful of the harassment his wife and child experienced over their Asian ancestry, Kane found himself in a California gun shop. His March 11 purchase of a 9mm would have been the end of the story, were it not for a political standoff over shutdown orders and background checks. Now Kane, a former supporter of gun-control measures and AR-15 bans, is frustrated by the arduous process that has denied his family a sense of security. The pandemic has made the soft-spoken software engineer an unlikely Second Amendment supporter.

     "This has taken me, a law-abiding citizen with nary an unpaid parking ticket to my name, over a month," he told the Washington Free Beacon. "Meanwhile Joe Bad Guy has probably purchased several fully automatic AK-47s out of the back of an El Camino in a shady part of town with zero background checks."

This is still a guy that would happily ban "assault weapons," but at least he now views guns as a necessity. Baby steps .... 

• "Making sense of why Americans flock to gun stores during the COVID-19 pandemic"--The Washington Times. From the article:

       As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded in 2013, almost all major studies on the issue have found that Americans use their firearms for self-defense somewhere between 500,000 and 3 million times a year. The database includes only those instances that could be independently verified through public sources, and where sufficient evidence exists to believe the gun owner acted both lawfully and responsibly.

       There’s good reason to believe that most defensive gun uses are never reported to law enforcement, much less picked up by local media or highlighted in national news stories. While my inner lawyer knows that a gun owner should file a report every single time he or she has to draw a weapon, regardless of whether shots are fired, the reality is that many people see such instances as complete non-events, unworthy of getting the police involved.

      Worse, gun owners may have a very real fear that calling law enforcement opens the doors for too many legal technicalities that will result in the gun owner — not the criminal— being arrested.

      Still, while the Defensive Gun Use Database merely scratches the surface of the importance of the Second Amendment in American society, it provides a much-needed counterbalance to the many false narratives about gun ownership. Most importantly, the database gives hard evidence to support what Americans instinctively know: The government cannot always be there to protect your individual rights and liberties from criminals.

• "The Strength Of The Concealed Carry Family"--Concealed Carry Inc. The author writes:

I get it, not everyone is a gun person, and I am not advocating using force to get your significant other to get their concealed carry license with you. But here are a couple of points I want to make in favor of having your spouse attend, even if they are not a gun person.

• If you carry a firearm with proper training you ARE SAFER. When you aren't around, doesn't your spouse deserve to be as safe as they were when they were with you? We also know carrying a firearm every day (or even occasionally for the casual concealed carrier) is a lifestyle. As a couple, you chose that person AND their lifestyle. One of you carrying a firearm means there will be a firearm in the house. This means your partner, at the very least, should take a gun safety course so they are safe around the firearm. One of you carrying a firearm means you both may have instances where you are out of the home with a firearm. This means you now have to worry about the local laws in reference to firearm possession. If only one of you has a license, and, for some reason, the unlicensed person is left in the vehicle with the firearm, while the other person goes into an establishment that does not allow firearms, (however unlikely) you could stumble into a legal issue that is not even worth the hassle.

• If one of you is trained and armed, two is even better. For obvious reasons, having both you and your significant other licensed, trained, and carrying exponentially increases the likelihood of successfully handling situations requiring a firearm.

• It will enrich and strengthen your relationship if you can share a common interest. They may not initially be a gun person but I have had so many people come through my class who were not really into guns, only to get out on the range and catch the shooting bug. They leave pumped up and wanting to shoot more and more. I mean honestly, wouldn't going shopping for a gun with your spouse be pretty darn cool? And date night could be a lot more fun if you were sending lead downrange instead of always watching a lame movie.

• "Building Tribe: Understanding Tribal Politics"--Lizard Farmer. A key point:

... When SHTF most of your rural folks will prioritize their needs for security in a manner similar to this:

• Security of the family – “These are my people”

• Security of the Property (including stock) -“This is my land, my house, my stock, my crops”

• Security of the neighbors – “These are my neighbors”

• Security of “common assets” (i.e. the local Church, Bridge, etc.) – “This is my neck of the woods”

      Everything else it a toss up.  It can go along political lines, racial lines, religious views, hell even what brand of truck or tractor they drive.  All that is sideshow material.

      So we’ve pretty much identified the four basic components of what rural folks worry about security wise.  So what do we do with that?  Quite simply we use those basic needs and desires to not only identify ourselves as a “tribe” but to support each other and reinforce local security. But how?

       Sell folks on the concept that nobody is going to take care of us but ourselves.  And frankly that’s true. ...

"1. Roman Britain - The Work of Giants Crumbled"--Fall of Civilizations (63 min.)

The author wants to understand what it would have been like to experience the fall of civilization, but all he has to do is look around him.

• "CDC's Latest 'Best Estimate' of COVID Death Rate Is 13 Times Lower Than Initial WHO Claim"--Western Journal. The article relates: "According to statistics 'based on data received by CDC prior to 4/29/2020,' the death rate from COVID-19 could be as low as 0.26 percent." From an epidemiological perspective, the Wuhan virus is turning into a bust. In fact, I saw an article the other day claiming that "[a]n Oxford University vaccine trial has only a 50 per cent chance of success because coronavirus is fading so rapidly in Britain." The economic and social impacts, however, will go on for years. And guess what? This was just a warning shot across the bow, so to speak. It is inevitable that we will, at some point, experience a pandemic that is deadlier by whole orders of magnitude.
• "Thousands Take Streets in Ecuador Against Coronavirus Budget Cuts"--Breitbart. From the article:

      Thousands of people across cities in Ecuador defied Chinese coronavirus social distancing advice on Monday to protest against economic cuts passed by President Lenin Moreno aimed at tackling the crisis.

     Last week, Moreno announced aggressive public spending cuts including the closure of state companies and embassies around the world. The move infuriated leftist trade unions, who complain that they are paying for the austerity rather than Ecuador’s elite.

     He also confirmed the liquidation of the TAME airline, a state-run carrier that has lost over $400 million in the last five years. Public sector working hours have been reduced by 25 percent and civil servants are facing a hefty 16 percent pay cut. Around 150,000 people have lost their jobs as a result of the lockdown. The government claims the current cost to the economy stands at $8 billion.

      Around 2,000 people marched in the capital Quito, waving flags and banners and shouting anti-government slogans calling for a restoration of the education budget and opposition to police repression. Demonstrations also took place in other major cities, including Guayaquil, the epicenter of Ecuador’s coronavirus outbreak, where union leaders claimed that hundreds marched through the city.

      “If the coronavirus doesn’t kill us, the government will,” one trader union leader in Guayaquil told Reuters news agency.

• "They are preparing the narrative"--Loose Rounds. 

       “A new report via the Department of Homeland Security Counterterrorism Mission Center, first seen by ABC News, warns if additional lockdowns are seen, it could very well spark violence. 

      “A variety of illicit actors are responding violently to stay-at-home orders and social distancing measures in place due to COVID-19, and we assess both public and private authority figures and essential workers are at highest risk of being targeted, particularly as the pandemic persists,” DHS said in the report, which was distributed to law enforcement and the federal government agencies last week. 

      “Even as parts of the country begin lifting some of these measures, some illicit actors probably will view any continued state-mandated orders as government overreach, and anticipated safety guidelines and policies—specifically the use of face masks—probably also will serve as a driving factor behind continued violent incidents related to the pandemic,” the report said. 

• "Scott Adams, Debt, and Economic CPR"--Wilder, Wealthy and Wise. Discussing the problems when the velocity of money drops to nearly zero: 

The chain of death of a business in after WuFlu looks something like this:

• Lockdowns stop businesses from being open, which

• Stops the money coming to Employees so,

• Employees stop buying, therefore

• Businesses don’t have money.

Keep this cycle up for two months and in some cases you’ve used up more reserves than the business has.  The result is either more debt, which the business still can’t pay because debt is the problem in the first place, or bankruptcy.

      The same cycle can be seen with landlords.

• A dollar owed for rent isn’t owed to a random person,

• It’s often owed to a person who has a mortgage against the property, and

• If the rent isn’t paid, many times the landlord can’t pay his

• But when the landlord can’t pay the mortgage, the bank isn’t paid.

If you’re worried about the bank, don’t.  The old saying is that “Debt is always paid, either by the borrower, or the lender.” In the case of banks, there’s the three Fed Amigos:  the Federal government, the Federal Reserve™, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

And don't worry about the large depositors. Although the FDIC supposedly only insures up to $100,000 in deposits, the reality is that when the FDIC has stepped in (at least as to the "too big to fail" banks) the funds have been used to prop up all deposits of all amounts, even for those accounts which should have had no right to any of the insurance. G. Edward Griffin's book, The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve, discusses this factoid in detail. Anyway, be sure to read Wilder's whole article.

• And the EU begins to wage war on an independent Britain: "Farage Catches French Ship ‘Going Dark’ to Avoid Detection on Illegal Migrant Drop Off"--Breitbart. From the article:

     A French ship [not a French flagged ship, but a vessel operated by the French government] escorting a boat of illegal migrants into British waters was potentially breaking international maritime law by travelling without its transponders turned on, according to claims in a film by Nigel Farage.

     Brexit leader Nigel Farage — once a British member of the European Parliament now engaged in a journalistic role to expose the scandal of illegal migrant boats and collusion between the French and British governments — filmed another handover in the English Channel on Tuesday, the second in a week.

     In a serious development and apparent escalation by the French government, Farage was able to reveal that the French ship involved in the migrant boat handover in British waters was travelling without its AIS (automatic identification system) transponder turned off, meaning it wouldn’t appear in digital GPS logs or in real-time ship information management systems.

    The push to ‘going dark’, in industry parlance, by the French Coastguard cutter came less than a week after Mr Farage was first able to expose the mid-Channel migrant handover involving French and British ships. Breitbart London was able to subsequently collaborate Mr Farage’s claims with publicly available AIS data, showing the French vessel had indeed met with British government vessels mid-Channel while escorting the migrant boat, but also that another French ship was already ‘running dark’, without a working AIS beacon.

• Like children throwing a tantrum, members of a certain ethnicity have been rioting and looting in Minneapolis and other cities because one of their own, George Floyd, died in police custody. (Here's a link to an uncut version of a video taken by a bystander, and it doesn't look good for the officers involved). In any event, some of the news of the riots and looting over the last two nights:

• Free stuff! "Looter is shot dead by pawn shop owner and stores are ransacked and torched as George Floyd protest erupts in violence and armed vigilantes patrol Minneapolis streets in second night of violence"--Daily Mail. 

• "Wheelchair-riding woman is beaten and sprayed with a fire extinguisher by looters who accuse her of 'getting out of her chair and STABBING them while trying to stop ransacking of Target' in George Floyd riots in Minneapolis"--Daily Mail. 

• "A murderer lives here': Protesters scrawl graffiti outside the home of white cop Derek Chauvin who knelt on George Floyd's neck for eight minutes until he passed out and later died"--Daily Mail. 

• "Black Lives Matter protester is left unconscious after falling from hood of police cruiser that was attacked as Los Angeles highway was closed down by demonstration in support of George Floyd"--Daily Mail. 

• "More Stories of Violence In Minneapolis Coming"--Loose Rounds.

• "Militia Shows Up At Minneapolis Protest/Riot 1100PM EST"--Loose Rounds.

• "Minnesota Protests Escalating 1030PM EST"--Loose Rounds. 

• "Video: Reported Looters Ransack Target Store Amid Minneapolis Protests"--Breitbart. 

• "***Live Updates*** George Floyd Protests Continue in Minnesota"--Breitbart. Trying to calm things down, "Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), who is one of the frontrunners to be Joe Biden’s running mate, said at today’s LULAC town hall event: 'By all counts, this was a public execution.'"

• "‘It’s Real Ugly’: Protesters Clash With Minneapolis Police After George Floyd’s Death"--CBS Minnesota. Quote in the article: "'We’re here to let them know this can’t be tolerated, there will be severe consequences if they continue to kill us this will not go on another day,' a protester said." Also, "'It’s real ugly. The police have to understand that this is the climate they have created, this is the climate they created,' another protester said."

• Fort Apache: "Looting In Minneapolis, Destruction At Police Station"--Weasel Zippers. 

• "Fires set, businesses looted and 1 man killed as George Floyd protests turn violent in Minneapolis"--Fox News.

• "Ice Cube: How Many Cops Have to Kill Black Americans ‘Before We Strike Back?’"--Breitbart.  Echo replies: how many career black criminal have to kill white Americans before we, too, should strike back? In any event, I liked this part: "[Minneapolis Mayer] Frey said during the press conference that he understands that people are angry and have the right to protest, but urged caution and continued social distancing because of the coronavirus pandemic." So he's cool with the rioting and looting so long as those doing are wearing masks and standing 6 feet apart?

• Vox Day comments on the rioting and looting: "At this point, I think the USA looking at a level of internal violence in the 2030s that will end up around halfway between the Rwanda/Holocaust level and the Great Leap Forward."

• The myth: black men being indiscriminately gunned down by police officers. The reality: "Happy Memorial Day, Chicago Style: 10 killed, 42 wounded"--The Truth About Guns.
• I just noted the other day a comment from Jon Low about the majority of kidnapping victims ending up dead: "California woman and her boyfriend are arrested for 'collecting ransom money' from families of Americans kidnapped in Mexico before two of the victims were found dead"--Daily Mail. That's 2 dead of a total of 3 victims.
• Hmm. "WATCH: Two Men Cross Border into Arizona, Start Fires, Return to Mexico"--Breitbart. "Border security cameras captured the events as two men crossed the border from Mexico into Arizona and set two fires before fleeing back across the border. The men set the fires in the Cocopah Tribal Land in an area where only a vehicle barrier secures the border."
• "The Central Park Dog Case Is Covington 2.0"--National Review. The article begins:

      New Yorker Amy Cooper was walking her dog in Central Park’s Ramble area, a little patch of semi-wilderness in an otherwise manicured park. She allowed her dog off the leash, which is against the rules. But on the other hand, the Ramble is the one little-frequented spot in the entire vast park where it kinda, sorta seems like rules don’t apply. For decades, the rules definitely didn’t apply: It was a popular gay pickup location for connoisseurs of anonymous al fresco sex.

      On Memorial Day, Cooper, a middle-aged white woman, was allowing her dog to run off-leash, breaking a rule that is widely ignored, albeit crucial for bird-watchers. Nearby was Christian Cooper, a middle-aged black man of no relation to her. Mr. Cooper is an avid birder and doesn’t much like dogs interfering with his avian observations. So he issued what to her sounded like a threat to poison her dog. Ms. Cooper freaked out. Who wouldn’t?

Also:

A charge of racism is the quintessential weapon of our age because it gives those who deploy it such an immense feeling of righteousness and because it’s impossible to disprove. No evidence Ms. Cooper can adduce can clear her name. “I voted for Obama twice!” “I have lots of black friends!” “I bought Ibram X. Kendi’s book!” Ms. Cooper’s goose is well and truly cooked. After the video went viral and she became the world’s designated hate target of the day, her only option was to grovel, which rarely works and didn’t this time. “I’m not a racist. I did not mean to harm that man in any way,” she told the media. Harm that man? She did Mr. Cooper no harm. He encouraged her to call the police as he was filming her. He, on the other hand, threatened to harm her dog, then his sister posted the video on Twitter in order to upend Ms. Cooper’s life. She even lost her dog after social-media users Karened on her for “choking” it in the video. But the dog is trying to get away from her, and she is holding it back, not choking it. As far as she knew, it was crucial to restrain the dog to save it from being poisoned.

• "Cuomo's Deadly Nursing Home Policy Likely Cost 10,000 Lives So Far"--PJ Media. From the article:

     Soon after Cuomo’s mandate was announced, a national association of nursing home doctors protested the policy, saying it  posed “a clear and present danger to all of the residents of a nursing home.” A patient advocacy group called The Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths also urged Cuomo to change the policy.

     He did not. He repeatedly defended the policy, as did Howard Zucker, New York state’s health commissioner. As the death toll rose, Cuomo quietly changed the policy so that nursing home patients who died in a hospital were not counted as nursing home deaths to cover-up the devastating impact of his policy.

    As we previously reported, nursing home patients represent less than one percent of the population, but nearly half of all coronavirus deaths. Cuomo dismissed criticism of his policy by saying “Older people, vulnerable people are going to die…That’s going to happen despite whatever you do.”

• Malice aforethought? "Is This the Reason Cuomo Gave Immunity to Nursing Homes?"--PJ Media.

      New York Governor Andrew Cuomo received a $1 million donation just before Election Day in 2018 from a big healthcare group that included nursing homes and hospitals.

     Last month, Cuomo signed into law a bill that would give immunity to hospitals and nursing homes from lawsuits stemming from the coronavirus.

     The donation and favorable legislation are not surprising. But given Cuomo’s disastrous policy regarding coronavirus patients being moved into nursing homes, causing thousands of deaths, the granting of immunity to a favored campaign contributor might be construed as a quid pro quo.

The immunity law, at the least, indicates that Cuomo knew or suspected at that point that a lot of nursing home residents would be dying because of having to accept Kung Flu patients.

• Related: "How is Gov. Cuomo Not Guilty of Involuntary Manslaughter?"--Bookworm Room. The article describes Cuomo's gross negligence, but in answer to the question posed in the title, neither Cuomo nor the New York health director will be held criminally liable because they were enacting a public policy. As this law review article explains:

 For most people most of the time, breaking the law is risky business. When individuals violate the law, they face prison, fines, injunctions, damages, and any number of other unpleasant consequences. But although law-breaking is ordinarily fraught with risk, it is not clear that this generalization applies to public officials. The laws that constrain public officials are often, after all, unsupported by the tangible penalties of the legal system. The constitutional constraints on permissible legislation are a prime example, for no formal legal penalty threatens the legislator (Spallone v. United States, 493 U.S. 279 (1990)) who votes for an unconstitutional law or the governor (or President) who signs one (Smiley v. Holm, 285 U.S. 355 (1932)). Similarly, few official legal sanctions are available against a State executive official who violates the Constitution behind the shield of qualified immunity from a civil rights action (Wilson v. Layne, 526 U.S. 603 (1999), a judge who issues an unconstitutional or otherwise substantively illegal ruling (Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547 (1967)), a prosecutor who acts unconstitutionally in prosecuting a case (Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409 (1976)), or a federal official who for reasons of immunity (Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224 (1991)) or otherwise is beyond the reach of a so-called Bivens action (Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971)).

(footnotes omitted).

• Related: "Andrew Cuomo gave immunity to nursing home execs after big campaign donations"--The Guardian (via Yahoo).

• Remind me again, is there a difference between Republicans and Democrats? "GOP Senators Beg Trump to Import More Foreign Workers While 36M Americans Are Jobless"--Breitbart. This request is to benefit farmers and other agriculture related entities who want cheap foreign labor for picking and processing crops, working in meat processing plants, etc.:

      While economists predict there may soon be 41 million unemployed Americans due to the Chinese coronavirus crisis, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John Cornyn (R-TX), Mike Crapo (R-ID), James Risch (R-ID), Mike Rounds (R-SD), Todd Young (R-IN), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), and James Lankford (R-OK) are asking Trump to continue an inflow of foreign workers to take agricultural and nonagricultural jobs.

     Specifically, the GOP senators say Trump must continue fast-tracking H-2A foreign agricultural workers and H-2B foreign nonagricultural workers into the U.S. and should allow businesses to exempt themselves from foreign worker restrictions so long as they claim they cannot find Americans to hire.

My Idaho readers should note that two of these vermin are from Idaho: Senators Mike Crapo (pronounced "crêpe-oh") and James Risch. 

• "Planned Parenthood Officials’ Testimony About Fetal Tissue Sales Contradicts Public Claims"--Breitbart. 

       The Center for Medical Progress (CMP), led by David Daleiden, released a new video Tuesday, along with accompanying documents and testimony, that features Planned Parenthood officials’ admissions, under oath, in their organization’s lawsuit against the pro-life group.

      The officals’ on-the-record testimony again highlights the allegations the abortion giant illegally profited from the sale of the body parts of babies aborted in its clinics.

      Among the Planned Parenthood officials featured in the video is Dr. Deborah Nucatola, senior director of medical services for Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), who appeared in the now familiar first undercover video of the series as she ate a salad and drank wine while discussing how she performs abortions in order to harvest the highest quality unborn baby body parts.

      “I knew [Planned Parenthood Los Angeles] was getting payments because I was a provider there,” Nucatola testified, yet also testified she never felt the need to check PPLA’s compliance with PPFA policies about receiving payments.

• Another example of Leftist tolerance: "Anger After Croatian Capital City Replaces Pride Flags with Pro-Life Banners"--Breitbart. Per the article, "Flags marking the anti-abortion March for Life, which was postponed due to the novel coronavirus, were erected in Zagreb on Sunday, to the anger of LGBT activists." The main group opposing giving others their turn to fly flags is Zagreb Pride, "a self-proclaimed “queer feminist and anti-fascist association” which states on its web-site that "it receives funding from Hungarian billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Foundations as well as the governments of Sweden and the U.S." as well as the E.U.
• "Why Did Arizona Democrats Kill A Bill Protecting Citizens From Police Overreach?"--Captain's Journal. The proposed bill would have significantly cracked down on asset forfeitures initiated by law enforcement where no one was charged with a crime. Democrats opposed the bill because "[t]he pandemic is hurting government budgets, and they don’t want to give up the revenue."
• While we universally refer to China as a communist country, that isn't really true anymore, if it ever was. The key difference between Italian fascism, National Socialism (as practices by the Nazi party) and Communism derived from nationalistic urges. Fascism (and Nazism) was nationalistic, and proudly so, while Communism had the eventual goal of eliminating national barriers. But all three espoused socialism. Thus, the European left/right paradigm being based on affinity for open borders and cosmopolitanism (if on the left) or national loyalties (if on the right). (In stark contrast to the American left/right paradigm being based around the size and role of the government, with the left favoring larger government and greater government intervention, and the right preferring smaller, more limited government). China is not interested in expanding Communism with the eventual goal of eliminating borders. China is nationalistic and, to a significant extent, racist as well. China would be better described and viewed as espousing a form of fascism. 

       But, with all that theory aside, China is a tyranny and, as such, particularly vulnerable to social instability. And one way to dampen domestic anger at the ruling regime is to channel that anger in a nationalistic manner against foreign enemies. Thus, we are seeing headlines like the following:

• "Thousands of Chinese Troops Flood Border with India as Tensions Rise"--Breitbart. From the lede:

      Up to 5,000 Chinese troops are now massed along the disputed Ladakh border with India, and according to Indian officials, not all of them are staying on China’s side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

     Tensions along the border have grown steadily over the past three weeks, following the latest in a bizarre series of fistfights and rock-throwing incidents between Indian and Chinese soldiers.

• "India and China Move In More Troops as Border Tensions Rise"--Bloomberg. This article reports:

India has moved additional troops along its northern border as it prepares for an extended conflict with neighbor China, after several rounds of talks failed to ease tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals. China has already placed about 5,000 soldiers and armored vehicles within its side of the disputed border in the Ladakh region, an Indian government official said, asking not to be identified citing rules. India is adding a similar number of troops as well as artillery guns along the border to fend off the continuing incursions by Chinese army, the official said.

• "China's Xi urges preparedness for military combat amid coronavirus epidemic: state TV"--Reuters.

• "Hong Kong crisis: at least 360 arrested as China protests grow"--The Guardian. "Thousands of armed police had flooded the streets to stop the planned demonstrations aimed at halting a law criminalising ridicule of China’s national anthem. The protests have been given a fresh urgency with Beijing announcing last week plans to force a sweeping anti-sedition law on Hong Kong, where similar legislation was shelved after it caused mass protests in 2003."

• "China drops the word 'peaceful' as it vows to push for 'reunification' with self-ruled Taiwan amid intensifying tensions over the island's sovereignty"--Daily Mail. 

• "China to conduct major military drill simulating seizure of Taiwan-held island"--Japan Times.

• "China warns it could turn military exercises into invasion of Dongsha, Penghu, and Taiwan"--Taiwan News.

      As long time readers of this blog know, I served as a missionary in Japan. At that time, Japan occupied much the same position as does China today. Japan was an economic powerhouse with the second largest economy in the world, it was the go-to manufacturer for high-end electronics and automobiles as well as numerous other products, and it was "common knowledge" among the elites that Japan would soon bypass the United States. The Japanese were very aware of this, and quite proud of the fact that the total property valuations of just Tokyo exceeded that of all the property in the United States. During that time, one of the Church's apostles (I think M. Russell Ballard, but I may be wrong) spoke at a Church conference in Japan discussing the importance of Japan in providing future missionaries to China (China at that time was still completely closed to the Church), but that the Lord would first need to humble Japan in order for the Church membership to grow. A year later, the Japanese real-estate bubble popped. 

      In Matthew 24:14, Christ taught: "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come." "The end" could refer to the end of the "old" earth at the conclusion of the Millennium (see Rev. 21:1; also read Chapter 20 of Revelation for additional background). But it could also mean the end of the time of the Gentiles. If so, then it would suggest that China will be opened to missionary work prior to the Second Coming. In most nations, the opening to missionary work has been a peaceful and orderly process. In other instances, the doors have been opened as a result of warfare or political collapse sweeping away the old order (e.g., parts of Europe and Japan after World War II; South Korea after the Korean War; the East Bloc following the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Soviet Empire). It may be that China will be humbled in some manner that will, among other things, open it up to missionary work.