Media Dullards Misrepresent Trump Tweet

Vincent J. Curtis

20 June 2017

The media today is full of humorless dullards, and none more so than among the mental 27 year-olds in the destroy Trump media.  Trump reads back to them their own anonymously sourced story that he is under and investigation, and they take it as a confirmation.  There must have been a hesitancy somewhere, however, because the news story wasn’t that “Trump is under investigation” but that “Trump confirms….”

Trump was illustrating absurdity, as is obvious if one reads the entire tweet, i.e. that he is supposedly being investigated for obstruction of justice for firing James Comey by the very guy who recommended to Trump that James Comey be fired.

These investigations are examples of Washington chasing its tail in the desire to avoid having to deal with the Trump agenda: the repeal and replacement of Obamacare, tax reform, and balancing the federal budget.  These investigations are means by which the swamp creatures resist their swamp being drained.  But it’s going to be drained.

And all the Democrats will have going into the 2018 mid-term elections is the profound stink from the drying mudflats, that they are going to blame on Trump.

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Questions for Sessions

Vincent J. Curtis

15 June 2017

Attorney-General Sessions, during your confirmation hearings you were portrayed by my Democratic colleagues as a renegade from the Alabama Ku Klux Klan.  At these present hearings the suggestion is that you were an intermediary between the Trump campaign and a Russian attempt to subvert our election.  So which is it: are you a renegade from the Klan or are you a dupe of Russian communists?

If you were a member of the Alabama Klan that would make you a Democrat, would it not?  If you were a Soviet sympathizer in the 1970s and 1980s, what with the “winter soldier” controversy, the nuclear freeze movement, the anti-SDI movement and so forth, that would make you a Democrat, would it not?

General Sessions, are you or have you ever been a Democrat?

No further questions, Mr. Chairman.

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The Ross Rifle Paradigm

Vincent J. Curtis

5 May 2017

The story of the Ross Rifle is of a great Canadian idea that turned into failure because of a lack of experience.

The Ross rifle was the brainchild of Sir Charles Ross and Sam Hughes.  Both men served in the Boer War, and came away impressed with the long range accuracy of the Mauser Model 1895.  The Boer’s Mauser outclassed the British long Lee Enfield, which sported a 30” barrel.  Ross and Hughes came away with the impression that in the next war, long-range rifle marksmanship would play a crucial role in control of the battlefield.

Ross was an excellent marksman, and he had an amateur engineer’s interest in rifle design.  A wealthy Scottish nobleman, he had money to be able to assemble a manufacturing plant that could put his engineering ideas into practice.  His big idea was to mate a straight-pull bolt action to a long, heavy barrel.  Add a sweet trigger, and kumbaya!

Ross, however, lacked the practical experience and singlemindedness of a John Moses Browning.

At the time of the Boer War, the Canadian militia was armed with the single shot .303 calibre Martini-Henry.  The Canadian government determined to re-arm the militia with bolt-action, magazine fed repeaters.  Inexplicably, the British government refused to provide a license to manufacture the Lee Enfield in Canada, and this gave Ross and Hughes their opportunity.  Ross was awarded, in 1903, a contract to supply 12,000 rifles to the Canadian government.

The Ross was always an excellent target rifle.  But like all really new systems, it had teething problems, some of which were not discovered before its first use in combat.  Outside experts had already labelled the Ross as a target rifle masquerading as a military one; but Sam Hughes disagreed and was influential enough to prevent a serious review of the Ross, one that would endanger its quality as a marksman’s rifle.  Because of Canada’s meagre defense budget, military exercises were never large or serious enough to test the Ross in realistic battlefield conditions, tests that might have forced attention to the Ross’s shortcomings.

The chronic problem of the Ross was jamming.  The Ross was chambered for match-grade Canadian ammunition, made on the small end of the .303 cartridge’s specifications.  A close-fitting chamber improved accuracy.  Hence, when the Ross was fed trooper-grade British ammunition made in a new war factory, hard extractions became inevitable.  Reaming out the chambers and drilling out the rear aperture sight for the non-marksmen did not solve the other problems of the Ross.  Engineering and metallurgical problems led to more jamming issues.  Soft steel of the interrupted thread bolt-head allowed the left rear thread to bend when struck hard against the bolt-stop.  Thus, one hard extraction kicked open led to more hard extractions, or a failure to close into battery.

When these were fixed, the Ross, with a 30.5” heavy barrel, was heavier, unbalanced, and longer than the British SMLE Mk III, with its shorter 25” barrel.  But after shortening the heavy barrel by 5”, the Ross became balanced, and lighter, and handier than the Lee Enfield.  By this time, however, the damage was done; the Ross’s battlefield reputation was in ruins.  Only the snipers stuck with the Ross.

If the Ross of mid-1916 had been the Ross of mid-1914, Canadian infanteers would have carried the Ross rifle all through World War I, World War II, and Korea.  But because of lack of experience, numerous little problems became show-stoppers, until the damage was done.

America’s experience with the revolutionary M-16 was not unlike Canada’s with the Ross.  What was fine in America turned out in Vietnam to be problematic.  But America stuck with the M-16 and overcame its problems; and now an M-16 design has served as the American infantry rifle for longer than anything else since the revolution.

Canada is preparing to spend $26 billion or more on a new navy.  The plan is to build the ships in Canada.  Whatever experience and institutional memory Canada had in building warships disappeared decades ago, through lack of work.  Canada is in the same position with respect to warships that she was with the Ross infantry rifle.  Canadian draftsmen can draw anything you ask for; and workman can build anything drawn for them.  But is a combination of great ideas going to work in actual war?  What are the hidden pitfalls that have to be looked out for?  Lacking experience, neither our shipbuilders nor our naval architects can know.

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A version of this article appears in Esprit de Corps magazine Vol 24 Issue 5.

Questions for Comey

Vincent J. Curtis

8 June 2017

These are some questions I would like to have put to James Comey:

For what branch of government does the FBI Work?

Okay, the Executive Branch.  Who is the head of the Executive Branch?

Okay, the President.  Are you aware that the oath of the president includes that the laws be faithfully executed, and that this places him above you in terms of law enforcement?

The authority to investigate that you exercise is an executive authority, isn’t it?  The president’s authority as the head of the executive branch?

The president was elected to carry out certain political reforms that he campaigned on, did he not?

So, when he came to you and said that this Washington investigation was causing problems for him and the implementation of his program, can you not see his frustration?

Mr. Trump was elected to drain the Washington swamp, and here is a Washington-centric matter – allegations of collusion with Russia, and baseless accusation of his guilt in it – can you not see his perspective, that this is the swamp’s way of resisting being drained?

Why did you not accede to Mr. Trump’s request that it be released that he personally was not under investigation?  Did you not do something similar in respect of Hillary Clinton?

In your role, you sometimes have given the president advice.  Has he no right to give you advice?  Does the president the authority to direct you to investigate something?  Does that not include the authority to have you cease investigating something?

What is more important to you: your reputation or the success of your country?

I get the business of the FBI Director being like Caesar’s wife in respect of reputation, but in the rough-and-tumble of Washington politics, can you see how maintaining the image of Caesar’s wife can interfere with a just-elected president being stymied in moving on his agenda, and therefore the success of the country?

If it was chilling to pass on to your investigators that the president wanted the Flynn matter dropped, why do you say that your actual firing would not deter them in perusing the Flynn matter?

 You announced to the world that your investigation of Hillary Clinton was complete, and that you would not be pursuing charges, and yet you wouldn’t announce to the world that Donald Trump was not under investigation of any kind.  Why the difference?

The appearance of the “Russia Investigation” seems to break down into two parts.  The first is what Russian agents did to spoof, queer, mess with, and otherwise influence the election, and the second is coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian agents and that larger campaign to influence the election.  Have you any evidence that Mr. Trump authorized or himself engaged in such collusion?  Is it your opinion that Mr. Trump is his own man, or is he owned by the Russians?  Is there anybody in a position of giving advice to Mr. Trump who is in the pocket of the Russians?  If so, who are they?

When asked about it, you have said it is not for you to say what you think about President Trump having engaged in obstruction of justice in regards to the Flynn request, but you have also asserted that FBI agents have a moral if not legal obligation to report a crime, and especially a felony.  Did you report that President Trump may have engaged in felonious obstruction of justice to the Justice Department?  If not, why not?

Why did you loyally go along with A-G Loretta Lynch’s request to call the Hillary investigation “a matter” terms that tracked Democrat election rhetoric, but reacted with horror at meeting with the new president and deny that you would serve him loyally?  In fact, you didn’t trust Mr. Trump from the moment you met him, did you?  So, why wouldn’t he enquire as to your loyalty?  Especially in view of the leaking and the nature of those leaks?

You said you kept notes of meetings with President Trump because you did not trust him and you thought he would lie.  After the blissfully honest days of the Obama Administration, in which you kept no notes, why did you continue in your job as Director of the FBI under Trump, a man you did not trust?  Could that feeling of mistrust not spark a feeling of mistrust on Trump’s part towards you?

Following Senator Marco Rubio and Senator Chuck Schumer’s warning against dissing the intelligence services, why is it that the only thing about the Trump investigation that didn’t leak out was that Trump is not and never was the subject of a counterintelligence or criminal investigation?

You had your memos to self leaked in order to force the appointment of a special council.  Why did you not force the same in respect of the Hillary Clinton investigation?

The investigative fury that has been launched against Donald Trump has been slipping.  First, it was collusion between his campaign and the Russians, and that has now gone by the boards.  Then, it moved to the transition period, when Jared Kushner set out to create a back-channel communications with the Russians.  That this became an issue proves that there was no collusion during the campaign, because those channels would already have been created by collusion during the campaign.  The Kushner thing turns into nothing because the establishment of back-channels is routine in the conduct of modern diplomacy.  So, then it was the Flynn matter and his conversation with the Russian ambassador that was misrepresented to Vice-President Pence.  Since Flynn was fired, all that is left is an accusation of obstruction of justice by Trump’s asking Comey to let the Flynn matter drop, and this occurred after Trump had assumed office.

The pattern here is of Washington engaging in its chasing of the tail in order to thwart Donald Trump is carrying out his election mandate to drain the swamp, to repeal and replace Obamacare, to implement tax reform, and to build a wall.  No wonder a New York businessman has so little patience with the ways of Washington, something he was elected to change.  The swamp is doing everything to avoid being drained.

And that is what all this furious investigation is about: the swamp doing what it can to resist being drained by this man whom they despise.

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