This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Jonn Lilyea

  • Japan executes Aum Shinrikyo terrorists

    Japan executes Aum Shinrikyo terrorists

    AW1Ed sends us the news that Japan hanged seven members of the cult terrorists of Aum Shinrikyo, including their leader Shoko Asahara. The group was blamed for the nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subway system in 1995 which killed 13 and injured more than 6,000.

    The hanging of Asahara has in some ways closed the curtain on the shocking crimes and dramatic events staged by Aum. But it also leaves several critical questions unanswered, because even during his trial, Asahara never explained the actual motivations for the crimes.

    In particular, the 1995 sarin attack in Tokyo is remembered as a watershed event that deeply damaged a long-held sense of security felt by many in postwar Japan.

    […]

    In addition to Asahara, 191 Aum members were indicted over a number of criminal acts — including murders, attempted murders, abductions and the production of deadly nerve gases and illegal automatic rifles. Twelve had their death penalty sentences finalized.

    There are rumors in the Japanese media that at least one of the folks who were executed was awaiting retrial. But not now, I guess. He’s in Hell’s waiting room.

  • Christine Lavin; guns in Oakland

    Christine Lavin; guns in Oakland

    The San Fransisco Chronicle publishes an opinion piece by Christine Lavin who claims that she was an editor at the Oakland, California Tribune. Before that she claims that she was a firearms instructor in Houston, Texas. I believed her up until she told the story about how she had to protect herself from some Texas rednecks who assaulted her with their pickup truck because of her bumpersticker;

    I thought the ramming was an accident. I didn’t think there was any damage. It was 2:15 a.m. and I just wanted to get home. But then, the truck sped up and rammed me harder. An exit came up, and I took it. The pickup followed me and rammed me again. I pulled over.

    It dawned on me that whoever was behind me must not have liked my bumper sticker. Two guys got out of the pickup, and in the rearview mirror, I watched them marching up to my car.

    I opened my glove compartment, took out my Glock 17, and flipped off the safety.

    See, that’s where she lost me – there is no safety on the Glock to “flip off”. The safety is a tiny lever on the trigger that disengages when the firer squeezes the trigger. But, hey, Christine is a firearms instructor, right?

    Oh, yeah, the whole point of the story is summed up in this paragraph;

    President Trump started fanning the flames against the media before he even stepped into office, and I can’t help but suspect that his rhetoric might have goaded Jarrod Ramos into walking into the Gazette’s offices with a pump-action shotgun.

    Yeah, Ramos had an ongoing dispute with the Gazette since the early days of the Obama Administration, but Trump pushed him over the edge. Nice stretch.

    Lavin was fired from the Oakland paper in the mid-nineties because she was boinking a local city councilman, you know, one of the people she was supposed to be reporting about.

    She says that the folks in Annapolis should have a gun in their desk drawer – forgetting that gun ownership is restricted in Maryland, as it is in California these days – she probably couldn’t have a gun in her desk drawer in Oakland, either. The State provides security for it’s citizens, however imperfectly.

    But after the “safety flipped off” story, I don’t think I can believe anything she says.

  • Charles Christopher Mueller; phony SEAL

    Charles Christopher Mueller; phony SEAL

    Our partners at Military Phonies send us their work on this fellow Charles Christopher Mueller who claims to be a Navy SEAL. As soon as he was confronted by real SEALs, he deleted his Facebook presence, but not before they snagged his claims. They were attracted to him because of his love of the fugly SEAL cap worn only by phony SEALs;

    He has other caps, though;

    He also wears a Trident on his suit jacket;

    Chuckie Badass was in the Navy – for a month back in 1992;

    There are records that NPRC doesn’t have, though. He was arrested in 2016 for impersonating a police officer in Alabama;

    DOTHAN, AL (WSFA) – A Georgia man has been charged with impersonating a police officer, according to Dothan officials.

    Dothan police say 42-year-old Charles Christopher Mueller of Climax Georgia has been taken into custody with a bond of $15,000.

  • Saturday morning feel good stories

    Saturday morning feel good stories

    From Richmond, California;

    “Detectives learned that the 47 yr. old suspect from Richmond attempted to break into two other houses before he forced himself into the homeowner’s house,” Richmond police spokesperson Lt. Felix Tan said. “After breaking a window and entering the house, the homeowner had no choice but to defend his family and himself from the suspect. The homeowner incapacitated the suspect by shooting him a few times. The suspect was taken to a local trauma center where he is still alive.”

    Police say the shooting appears to be “self defense on the part of the homeowner as a victim of a home-invasion robbery,” Tan said.

    From Tulsa, Oklahoma;

    Officers arrived and found the 42-year-old wounded man lying by the front entry door as well as several bullet holes in a wall. They say he was pronounced dead a few minutes later.

    Police say the woman told officers she was watching TV with her current boyfriend when she heard someone banging on the patio door. They say the woman told police she grabbed her gun and fired at the ex-boyfriend as he broke through the glass door. Police say the woman said she didn’t know it was her ex-boyfriend at first, and thought it was a burglar.

    “She surrendered. She called, ‘The gun is on the front stoop of the porch,’ and her and her friend are downtown right now being interviewed,” Sergeant Dave Walker said.

    The woman also told officers that ex-boyfriend had a history of stalking her.

    In Jackson, Tennessee;

    Jackson police said a 34-year-old Lexington man kicked in the door at one of the apartments. Officers said a person inside then shot the suspect. Police said the suspect ignored warnings not to come inside the apartment.

    Investigators said the suspect was seriously injured and went to a hospital in Memphis. His condition is unknown at this time.

    From Mount Forest Township, Michigan;

    A 43-year-old man is dead after kicking in the door of his girlfriend’s rural home and being shot by her mom’s boyfriend.

    About 1:30 a.m. on Friday, July 6, Michigan State Police troopers responded to a shooting at a house in the 4700 block of Bay-Gladwin County Line Road near Rhodes in Bay County’s Mount Forest Township. A man had called his 31-year-old girlfriend and threatened her, said Special 1st Lt. David Kaiser.

    A short time later, the man showed up and kicked in a door that his girlfriend had deadbolted shut. The man proceeded to assault her, her mom, and her mom’s 65-year-old boyfriend, Kaiser said.

    During the attack, the mom’s boyfriend retrieved a handgun and shot the intruder once in his chest. The intruder died of his wound before troopers arrived, Kaiser said.

    From Dallas, Texas;

    On June 25 at about 2:30 a.m., Dallas Police responded to a shooting call at Gabby Hall Auto Parts at 8365 C F Hawn Freeway. The owner of the shop, 52-year-old Rusom Tsegu, told police he shot and killed an unknown intruder.

    Tsegu was interviewed by detectives and released pending a ruling from the Dallas County Grand Jury.

    Detectives are now hoping the public can help identify the man who was shot and killed.

  • Weekend open thread

    Weekend open thread

    Brown Neck Gaitor sends us our photo for this week’s open thread. I’m posting it in celebration of the final payment of my legal bills.

  • AP: US Army quietly discharging immigrant recruits

    The Associated Press has an article going around today about how the US Army [is] quietly discharging immigrant recruits. It can be misleading, if you choose to misread the whole thing. Basically, the Army is issuing uncharacterized discharges to people who haven’t gone to basic training yet because of problems with their applications. Some folks are reading it as the Army is discharging active duty soldiers – but that’s not it at all;

    Some of the service members say they were not told why they were being discharged. Others who pressed for answers said the Army informed them they’d been labeled as security risks because they have relatives abroad or because the Defense Department had not completed background checks on them.

    Spokespeople for the Pentagon and the Army said that, due to the pending litigation, they were unable to explain the discharges or respond to questions about whether there have been policy changes in any of the military branches.

    Eligible recruits are required to have legal status in the U.S., such as a student visa, before enlisting. More than 5,000 immigrants were recruited into the program in 2016, and an estimated 10,000 are currently serving. Most go the Army, but some also go to the other military branches.

    Many of the quotes from recruits in the article give the reader the impression that they spent time on active duty – that’s not the case. The immigration attorney keeps saying thing like “Immigrants have been serving in the Army since 1775” whatever that means because it doesn’t apply to this situation at all.

    President George W. Bush ordered “expedited naturalization” for immigrant soldiers in 2002 in an effort to swell military ranks. Seven years later the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest program, known as MAVNI, became an official recruiting program.

    It came under fire from conservatives when President Barack Obama added DACA recipients — young immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally — to the list of eligible enlistees. In response, the military layered on additional security clearances for recruits to pass before heading to boot camp.

    The Trump Administration added even more hurdles, creating a backlog within the Defense Department. Last fall, hundreds of recruits still in the enlistment process had their contracts canceled. A few months later, the military suspended MAVNI.

    See, you have to read deeply into the article until you understand that the Associated Press is talking about recruits waiting on start dates, not soldiers on active duty.

    I’m just waiting for the anti-military Left to take up the mantle for these recruits.

  • CT convicts Jeffery Sumpter, assault victim

    CT convicts Jeffery Sumpter, assault victim

    AnotherPat sends us a link from Fox News which tells the story of 21-year-old Jeffery Sumpter who was convicted in Connecticut court for stabbing in the leg one of three criminals who jumped him at his job at Dunkin’ Donuts;

    “I was defending myself,” Sumpter said during the hearing.

    Judge John Blawie told Sumpter that he believed his version of events, but had to follow the letter of the law.

    Under Connecticut law, assault victims cannot use deadly force if they are able to retreat from their attackers.

    Sumpter was convicted of felony first-degree assault, sentenced to eighteen months in prison and three years probation. I would be an ex-Connecticut resident yesterday. What a shithole.

  • Marine Brig. Gen. Rick A. Uribe mistreated staff in Iraq

    Marine Brig. Gen. Rick A. Uribe mistreated staff in Iraq

    According to Stars & Stripes, Marine Brigadier General Rick A. Uribe took advantage of his staff while he was was the senior ranking Marine, deputy commanding general for operations in Baghdad and director of the Combined Joint Operations Center in as part of the anti-ISIS coalition from 2016-2017.

    Marine Brig. Gen. Rick A. Uribe — who had served previously as the inspector general of the Marine Corps — often had his aide pick up his laundry, deliver his meals, write his unofficial correspondence and stand by gym equipment he wanted to use to make sure no one else could use it, the Pentagon IG said in a report.

    Uribe also let his aide pay for his haircuts, borrowed cash and used Wi-Fi access she paid for without reimbursing her, the report found.

    If it’s true, that was pretty shitty of him. Real leaders don’t take advantage of their subordinates like that.

    But days after he returned to the U.S. from Iraq in June 2017, a Defense Department hotline complaint alleged that during the course of the one-year deployment, his aide’s “entire existence as aide-de-camp centered on personal servitude.”

    His defense was that he had never been a general or had an aide before;

    The aide, who is unnamed in the report, told investigators she had told him, “I’m doing a lot more stuff like your personal type of items. Like, that’s not my job as an aide.”

    To which she said Uribe replied only, “Understood.”

    Some of those personal services included stripping the sheets from the general’s bed and turning them in to be cleaned, as well as spending hours arranging to have his prescription toothpaste shipped to Iraq. The aide also alleged that he hoarded about $150 in chocolates and coffee sent to him by a lieutenant colonel.

    Oh, well, there’s coffee and chocolate involved – totally legit.