Nom de plume: Rivrdog

Library porn & how to fight it

We have two Library Boards here in the small City of Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. The CdA Public Library and the Community Library Network. We also have a "Constitutional Sheriff", Bob Norris, and the usual assortment of Marxist trash seeking to control all aspects of education. The Marxists have less success here than most other places, one of the big reasons I settled here after Oregon went Full Commie.

One of the usual ways the Marxists establish their beach-head of force used to destroy American Values is via taking over Library Boards, and they have done that here. Americans gained back some ground last election when we removed two Marxists from the Community Library Network's Board, but that's only slowed down the Marxists, not defeated them utterly. At a Town Hall meeting, which the Sheriff holds quarterly, a citizen asked about children's access to books with inappropriate sexual context. Sheriff Norris said he'd look into that, and he did. He visited the Post Falls Community Library and found two inappropriate books there.

Enter the "Yellow" press, or cdapress.com to be exact. They publish this guy's guest op-ed. He outright accuses the Sheriff of theft. I have decided to reply and submitted this letter, not published yet:

Please accept my reply to My Turn writer Lockwood, who writes to accuse Sheriff Norris of theft as he took a pair of books from the library for the purposes of investigation.

 

Mr Lockwood, these books were accessible to children and their express purpose is to TEACH varied sexual practices. I suspect that you believe that expertise in carnal knowlege must be extended to children as soon as they can read.

 

Religion has nothing to do with it, Mr Lockwood. This is about a case which could easily cross the line into child pornography, and it is certainly the Duty of a Sheriff to conduct an investigation to determine if probable cause exists to prosecute for those charges.

 

Indeed, Sheriff Norris would be remiss in his duty by NOT making this investigation. As to you, sir, your zeal in promoting this possible child pornography is very, very telling.

 

Sheriff, wouldn't it be appropriate to issue the Library a Property Inventory Receipt in this case?

 

Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.

 

"Seven Spanish Angels"

The song's provenance.

That one song that gets me right in the gut? It plays, I have to stop and overcome the tidal wave of emotion: "Seven Spanish Angels"

 

Refrain: "There were seven spanish angels at the altar of the sun...they were praying for the lovers in the Valley of the Gun."

 

Of course, the ballad is a story of violent death.

 

Of course, since the age of 25, I've been trained to deal with violent death, so why does THIS account of it affect me so?

 

"She reached down and picked the gun up,

that lay smoking in his hand,

she said, "Father please forgive me,

I can't make it without my man',

and she knew the gun was empty,

and she knew she couldn't win, but

her final prayer was answered

When their rifles fired again."

 

That's known as Suicide by Cop.

 

I was a cop for 25 years. MY gun could have dealt Death like that, on any duty-day of those 25 years.

For 25 years, I dreaded that it would.

I have not gotten OVER that dread. Put it in a box, but never got OVER it.

 

And then I hear "Seven Spanish Angels" again....

In two days...

It's my birthday. 74 years. I'm officially a Mid-Seventies Geezer. I get my Life-Membership in the Curmudgeon Club. I can snort and sniffle at all the X,Y, Z generations and their "trending" apple-crapple (especially their Apple crap, not a fan). I'm just a bit too old to be a "Boomer", although I could probably fudge my way into that group, except I diss on THEM also. That generation was responsible for bringing us metal-thrash music. Aside from a few GREAT base players in that genre, you can put metal-thrash music where the sun don't shine. The Doors lit my fire. Aretha Franklin made musical love to me. Steely Dan lit my fire. All music since has been a Royal Scam.

I put up with a lot of different politicians in these 74 years. The first President I read of regularly in the paper was Ike, who had just WON a War for the USA. We don't even try to WIN wars nowadays, we just fight them to some point of supposed advantage, then we quit without vanquishing anyone. The next President I really RESPECTED after Ike was Ronnie Reagan. I was an ace B52 nuclear bombardier during his Admin. Stationed at March AFB for the first three years of Ronnie, his E-4 Airborne Command Post aircraft would fly in and take up so much space, and his Staff used up so many Alert Vehicles that we had to be restricted to the Molehole while he was at his rancho down on the coast, but I didn't mind that, he was a great Commander In Chief to work for. I got a tour on the big bird once. It was VERY secret then.

I had two full careers in these 74 years. My Sociable Seguridad statement from 2003, the year I last worked for a paycheck, said that I had 47 years of full-time SSA credits. I served in the USAF for 22, half on Active Duty and half in the Reserves. I had 25 years as a beat cop on the mean streets, but in the days I worked those streets, the police commanders were interested in RESULTS, not PeeCee attitude. I couldn't do that job today. Crooks are still crooks, and you don't keep your community safe from them by mollycoddling them and "understanding" them, you find Probable Cause that they committed crimes and you take them to JAIL. The police game isn't played that way anymore, and you won't last as a cop nowadays without subscribing to the Chief's (or Sheriff's) political correctness dogma. Summing these two up, the new Chief is a BLM supporter who removed 25+ years of a database which tracked the street thugs as her first policy in her new office. Sheriff Reese is a major gun-banner who has sucked up Bloomberg's bucks. End of discussion on THOSE two. Good effing luck, Portland!

I have a new full-time job now. I am the full-time caregiver for my sweet wife of forty years, who will meet her Jesus in the not-distant future. We have a big house, so trying to keep it clean and her in a civilized condition is a full-time job with overtime every day for me. It's my duty, my God gave me this Duty when I made my Marriage Vows on February 7, 1977.

I have always done my duty as given to me. I see no reason to change that habit now, Praise God.

Three dreaded words

Watching the morning news in the 10am Eastern time segment on Fox. I like Maria Bartiromo, she spiels it out in plain English. Her interviews are clean and crisp and she doesn't talk over her guests like the big evening names do.

Maria was passing along some news out of Vegas. It seems that the MVPD is getting tired of their investigation into the mass-murders, and we know this because they are using a standard, but tried and true Homicide Detective's ploy to segue towards the end of their work. Problem is, they haven't established motive, so now I hear the three ugliest, most dreaded words:

"Undiagnosed mental illness"

Okay, I can hear you say it now, my peeps: "If all the leads turn up nothing, then undiagnosed mental illness must explain it, sir."

Two problems: that gives HUGE new hope to the mavens of Gun-Grabbing that they can maybe pass a bill that further restricts the rights our 2A gives us to keep and bear arms, AND it's a false statement to begin with. If you Vegas gumshoes haven't found the motive yet, could it possibly be because you haven't thought hard enough about the case, and you haven't thought hard enough because your world outlook is too restricted?

In my first instance above, I refer you to the Virginia Tech murders of a few years back. Out of that case, our ever-protective (NOT!) NRA spun their Rolodexes, made their calls and sold us the idea that OMG, un-documented Mental Illness had to be cause to restrict gun rights. We bought off on that and lost some gun rights (mostly for veterans and who gives a rip about veterans, right?) but we also lost some medical privacy, and nobody talks about that. Now comes Vegas, so we are about to be led further down the garden path into that thicket of gun-grabbing thorn-bushes. Now it's un-diagnosed Mental Illness. Think about that for a moment.

Is writing a gun law dealing with un-diagnosed Mental Illness a gun-grabber's blank check, or WHAT! How far from that Bill would it be to "2A only applies if you pass a mental-health examination"? If you said that is a small gap that can easily be overcome, take the rest of this class period off, you've passed the test.

The quality factor in Investigations

In police work, "evidence" is any fact(s) which help the investigator prove that the alleged perpetrator did break the law. Some evidence is obvious: was the suspect at the scene of the crime or not? Other evidence is not as obvious: can unknown witnesses be discovered who can establish the suspect's presence at the crime scene? Finally, some evidence is obscure, such as who might know the suspect and be able to suggest if suspect might be the type to commit this crime? These three examples go to the quality of the evidence, and when the investigator turns the case in for prosecution, the legal quality of the evidence is the primary factor in deciding whether the case is prosecuted or not.

This primer on quality of evidence is taught in every police academy in the free world, because courts are required to consider the best evidence when deciding guilt or innocence, not just here in the USA, but in every Nation which has a liberty-based legal system. Note that the Best Evidence Rule covers the admission of documentary evidence, but the Court also considers the quality of other evidence, such as eyewitness testimony. You don't want to be tried for crimes in the other kind of nations where the Judge has sole discretion to use evidence or not, and how to evaluate evidence or not.

In my first Police Academy (I attended two because of a break in police service caused by being called back into the military: I was just over the five-year point when I went back to copping, and Oregon's DPSST (POST) rules say five years is the max, no waivers.), I was taught that evidence quality is determined by the concept of directness: the farther the evidence was from being totally direct (e.g.: suspect arrested at crime scene, loot in pockets), the lower it's quality, the more work had to be done to establish it for Court presentation. As a rookie, I made my first Armed Robbery case on one eyewitness account. The eyewitness had observed the suspect drive his 1963 Chevy Impala hardtop to the drive-up window of the burger joint, had observed as he presented his gun, got a bag of cash and drove away. The eyewitness wrote down the robbers description, wrote down the license plate, then as I arrived, that witness handed me his note, which I entered into evidence, along with all the other interview results. I sent my APB, attention to the hometown cops of the registered owner, and 90 minutes later, the local gendarmes there (next state over) had him in jail. I got a rare Detective Division attaboy for that one and the suspect plead guilty to Robbery First, getting ten years in prison. No plea bargain was acceptable to the DA for that case, built as it was on the highest quality of evidence.

Take the above basic lesson in criminal justice, and apply it (or, I should say try to apply it) to the case of Hillary Rodham Clinton and her illegal email server, now widely assumed to have been hacked by the Russians. Now read this article, R.T.W.T., and apply your quality of evidence evaluation to the work the FBI (under Director Comey, whose wife had just gotten an $8.5M defense contract) which Bureau then said, and has been saying ever sine, "oh, those evil Russians".

As I read the Net Right Daily article, I recognize that the FBI's claim of hacking evidence doesn't withstand the first layer of evaluation, let alone the three layers which the article's author applied to that bogus claim. You try my evaluation and see what you get.

Time to indict Hillary. Get it done, Mr. Sessions. 

Working up to Qual Day - LEOSA04 Qualification

As an Honorably Retired peace officer, I have a National Carry privilege. Okay, all you Constitutional Carry peeps, got the hate out of your system? If not, click elsewhere. I protected my community as a Patrol Deputy for 25 years, so I deserve this. Want some of it? Kick your CongressCritter in  the buttski and tell that DeepState weasel to bring forward the Reciprocity Act.

Enough politicking. This post is about working up skills, long rusty. Why rusty, you say? I'm going Retro*. Turning back the calendar to 1986, the last time I carried a revolver on duty. Yep, I'm going to leave the europellet** flingers, the Glocks, the Remington R51 and the Ruger LCS-9-Pro in the safe and pull out my Ruger Service-Six 38, a stainless 4"-bbl service revolver with fixed sights. Original wooden grips, only "custom" on it is a dab of VERY bright orange nail polish on the front sight blade. It rides, along with a 2X-Speedloader unit, on a 2" pants belt in an Uncle Mike's #2 nylon holster with top-strap. Retention Level-0 equipment. Yes, I do, in fact, carry revolvers concealed. My favorite is my Charter Arms pair, a 44-Special Bulldog and a 40 S&W Pitbull. Speedloaders for the Service-Six are HKS #10. Additional equipment for training are two sets of 6 rounds each Pachmayr dummy loads in 38/357. Lots of dry-firing involved in my work-up routine.

My "Training Range" is the second-floor hallway in Schloss Schneiden. The hallway is 25 feet long, and by using part of the master bedroom, I have 15 yards to work with. The K-5 section of a standard #28 Silhouette target is tacked to the linen-closet door at the far end of the hallway. Lighting is about the same as range lighting.

Here is the Police Qualification Course for Off-Duty weapons in Oregon (DPSST standard). I have to meet this standard. Score = 100% hits on the K-5, within the time limits for each stage:

Practical Qualification Course (PQC) I

• 25 Rounds
• Scoring: 100% hits within the 5 zone

1. 10-Yard Line - 3 Rounds
Two hand strong hand fire only
The student starts at the 15-yard line, one step right or left of the fire lane.  On the signal, the student conducts an "L" movement to the cover barrel at 10-yards, draws and fires from cover one round strong side, and round over the top and one round support side.
Time Limit: 15 seconds

2. 7-Yard Line - 6 Rounds
On the signal, the student draws and fires 2 rounds
Time Limit: 4 seconds
Repeat for a total of 6 rounds

3. 5-Yard Line - 8 Rounds
On the signal, the student draws and fires 2 rounds.
The student takes one step right or left and reloads firing 6 additional rounds.  The student then steps back where they started and conducts a tactical reload.
Time Limit: 15 seconds (to fire the 8 rounds, not counting final step and tactical reload.)

4. 3-Yard Line - 6 Rounds
Student draws and fires 3 rounds strong hand only.
The student then takes one step right or left, transfers the weapon to the support hand and fires 3 rounds with support hand only.
Time Limit:  10 seconds

5. 2-Yard Line - 2 Rounds
Student draws while taking 1 step back and fires 2 rounds.  The student then takes 1 step right or left to get out of the line of attack.
Student starts with hand encumbered.
Time Limit:  3 seconds

I have shot this course a number of times with a semi-auto pistol. It was designed for cops shooting quick-reloading pistols. It is easier to shoot with a pistol, probably half-again as hard with a revolver. Unless you are Jerry Miculek, reloading speed with a revo is WAY slower than with a pistol UNLESS you spend hours working with the gun and dummy rounds.

 

I set up my timer and started in on Stage One. I was three seconds over on my first try. I found that I was performing the "L-approach" to the barricade wrong, and when I started on the proper foot, planted the proper foot to drop behind the barricade, I worked up to 12 seconds for the three shooting positions, and repeated that 4 times. Best time was 10.5 seconds. That will work.

 

Stage two is easy. It is draw quickly, raise to a two-handed stance and double-tap. No problems, mostly in the 2.5 second range from the git-go.

 

Stage three is the most difficult of the lot. This is a lead-pipe cinch with a Glock: double-tap, drop-free mag change, drop the slide and hammer, then six more downrange, easy to do in 8 to 10 seconds. With a revo, the draw and double-tap takes 2.5 seconds, THEN you have to do a two-handed cylinder-clear, THEN grab a speedloader out of your pouch, guide it to the the open cylinder face, insert the rounds, activate the speedloader latch, drop the rounds into the cylinder with that tricky little shake-move, then close the cylinder, bring up the gun to two-handed grip and dump the six rounds into that target. First three of my attmpts were over the time limit by 2-3 seconds. I practiced the speedloader work separately for about 10 evolutions and tried again. Dead even with the timer. Tried five more times, eventually settling on a 1.5 to 2 second time UNDER the timer's beep. I need to work that down to a 3-second pad.

 

Stage four is a piece of cake. Never took more than seven seconds for this stage.

 

Stage five is easy, it's a 2-second evolution for me. I remember doing this stage when I wore the Star. The hard-ass Rangemaster demanded that we actually used an interview stance (which doesn't line your gun up well with the target), and flip our police notebook in the FACE of the silhouette before killing the silhouette with the fast-draw and double-tap. This course of fire doesn't require for the notebook-throw, but I still practice it that way. One may also throw up the off-hand in the perp's face, scream your Death-Word in his face, then draw and fire while doing the step-back. Also effective, but some risk of shooting your hand as you pull it back from the distraction-move.

 

Practice today was 90 minutes after my afternoon nap. More practice tomorrow and Monday, then Qual Day on Tuesday with the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office range crew.

 

Pew-Pew days at the range, expending 340 rounds, already in the logbook. This form-of-stages practice is the more important, though.

 

 

Portland cops illegally enforce "no weapons zone" at Free Speech Rally

This action shows just how badly the authority of the Left side of Government can be abused.

Situation: a rally by pro-Trump groups was planned for 6-4-17 on Federal property (Terry Shrunk Plaza, Portland), and the Looney Lefty Mayor tried to cancel it, found he couldn't do that, so he sent his cops to cordon off the Federal Park (only one small city Block). The cops apparently were under orders to "stop and frisk" everyone going into the Plaza, and they did that, seizing a LARGE number of things from people. Some obviously WERE makeshift weapons (home-made spears), most were questionable (walking sticks and the like), and some were ordinary things that people would have as they stroll in public, such as pocket folding knives. It seems that the cops overlooked several Constitutional guarantees at their display of force:

• Police are required to issue a Property Report, filed under a Police File Number, for EVERY item which they seize under ANY circumstance. No such reports have been found for this large number of seizures. The cops DID Tweet photos, more of a brag than a report.
• Cops are supposed to follow the law. There is NO law on the books that I am aware of which authorized then to declare any sort of "weapon-free zone" at the perimeter of the Terry Shrunk Plaza. A "State of Emergency" had NOT been declared.
• The Police have let themselves in for HUGE Civil Liability, as there WERE injuries from fights there which the cops (1) did not prevent and (2) disarmed folks of items which they might have used in their own defense.
• The cops may have exceeded their authority so far as to be personally criminally liable for Denial of Civil Rights under Color of Authority (18USC242 et seq).

Who, among the spokespeople for Freedom in this area are going to call for a Civil Rights Investigation? Denial of Civil Rights as a leftist political strategy gains strength by the day around here, but has been practiced by the Lefty Looney Leaders of Portland for years. For example, about six years ago, during Rose Festival Week, I navigated my small yacht up the Willamette River towards the Riverplace Marina, where I had rented a berth for several days. As I approached the downtown area on my voyage from the Multnomah Channel Yacht Club, I stopped at the blockade under the Broadway Bridge to be searched. I had 2 concealable weapons on my boat, allowed by law due to my status as a retired Peace Officer of this State, and I told the Federal Homeland Security cop on the River Patrol boat that. I was refused navigation upriver past that point. I turned around and berthed at the  nearby River Patrol station, and had an River Patrol officer of my acquaintance put my sidearms in his locker. I went back to the blockade, was inspected and passed along (in an escorted convoy, no less) to go upriver past the moored warships of the US and Canadian Navies (to which my 38-caliber Ruger and Kel-Tec P3AT was no threat, since they had sailors topsides manning 20mm and 50-caliber defensive weapons and there was a "red-line" Exclusion Zone in effect around the ships). BTW, my boat is large enough to qualify as a "Home" under Oregon Law, so any weapons aboard M/V Lofoten Girl cannot be removed without a Search Warrant, properly approved by a Judge. None of that mattered to the anti-gun Portland City Hall, though.

Happy Dance!

The Gudwif is home from her seven weeks of durance vile in the nursing home! The cat is all over her like a blanket. We just celebrated her release from Skilled Nursing with a London Broil and Baby Back Ribs Mixed Grill, rice on the side and Southwestern roasted peppers and onions.I chased mine with A Spoetzl Shiner Bock and she had a sweet tea.

Tomorrow, the Home Nurses will tell her future.

Oh, BTW, today was MY 14th Anniversary of retirement from the Deputy career. Seems like only yesterday...

All is good.

"Saved thousands of lives"

Heard that a lot, lately, have you?

You're not alone. This is a Mark One, Mod Zero theme of Big Government, quoted as often as they think is necessary to convince the sheeple that they are fully protected from all imaginable harm by their Government, and that NO individual effort is ever required to ensure protection from harm..

Recently, we've heard it quoted to justify a total loss of our electronic privacy.

Now we hear it quoted by (R)INO ex-Governor Pataki of New York to support the now-illegal policy of "stop and frisk" as used in New York City by their police department.

Here's a clue, Governor. I'm willing to wager that for every one of those lives that you can PROVE were actually saved by this mockery of the Fourth Amendment, I can PROVE that your anti-gun policies in both the State and the City of New York have COST more lives than have been saved.

Just open a comment if you want to complete a public wager, Governor.

Before you put your money down, Governor, have your law librarian whip out the SCOTUS decision in Terry vs. Ohio, since that's what is ACTUALLY the Law of the Land in "stop and frisk". If your police stops don't meet the Terry test of "reasonable suspicion", they aren't legal, AND, according to a US District Court Judge, the stop tactic as used by NYPD appears to have a racial basis.

So, here's the lesson, readers: whenever you hear "saved thousands of lives", stop the person saying that, right in their tracks, and ask them to provide a list of those lives saved. Do this every time you hear the offending abuse of statistics. IF there actually WERE real statistics, there is a factual basis for the stats given. Ask for the facts. If no facts are forthcoming, yell "B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T." at the top of your voice.

Zipper Failure

...comes in several forms, such as a marriage-gone-stale temptation, and some (not much) sympathy can be found in those cases, locally exemplified by the County Executive's case.

When an on-duty cop has such a failure, and it's with a street whore, now that's an avalanche of STUPID. BTW, this cop was a Stater (detective), attached to the Tribal Gaming section. Hmmmm, something tells me the Oregon State Police needs to look over his entire case-load.

Yep, "following the wrong Captain" has ruined many a career and life. My father did his duty and warned me quite strongly about such stupidity.

Detective, YOU are Maroon of the Month!