Category: Just Desserts

Court Vaporizes 50 Years of Environmental Law Leaving Trump’s EPA to Build on the Ashes

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit summarily vaporized 46 years of Federal environmental regulations. Writing in a case called Marin Audubon Society, et al v. FAA, et al, the majority of a three-judge panel ruled that the Council on Environmental Quality, a cabal inside the Executive Office of the President charged with ensuring that National Environmental Protection Act requirements are interpreted uniformly across the federal government, had illegally used the Federal Register to publish that guidance thereby giving citizens, agencies, and even the courts the impression that their internal guidance had the authority of law.

The decision was written by Karen LeCraft Henderson (George H. W. Bush) and A. Raymond Randolph (George H. W. Bush) with Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan (Joe Biden) dissenting, and it found:

As the parties argue the case, it centers on whether the Agencies complied with regulations of the Council on Environmental Quality, an entity within the Executive Office of the President.  We will not address these arguments.  The CEQ regulations, which purport to govern how all federal agencies must comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, are ultra vires.

Ultra vires means the CEQ was acting “beyond the legal scope of it authority.”

The court goes on to detail the shenanigans by which an advisory body with no regulatory authority was able to write environmental regulations for the entire United States for nearly a half-century just because it decided it could.

Making the case even more awesome is that it was set off by enviro-wackos suing the FAA for allowing sightseeing flights near some national parks. The enviros claimed the FAA used the wrong standard established by the CEQ to permit the flight. They ended up being right in a backhanded kind of way.

This decision throws the entire environmental regulation scheme governing the federal government into chaos. I suspect that many of the CEQs regulations will be reissued by other agencies, but after Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (see The Supreme Court Firebombs the Administrative State and Tells Congress to Get Off Its Butt and Work) that slew the medusa called “Chevron deference,” the survival of those replacement regulations is not assured.

The silver lining is that Trump’s EPA, under Lee Zeldin (see We Have Another Trump Cabinet Pick: Lee Zeldin Gets the Nod), will get the first crack at reworking useless and expensive regulations.

Complete Decision

Marin Audobon Society vs. FAA by streiff on Scribd

Yahya Sinwar is dead. What we know about death of Hamas leader behind Oct. 7 attacks

Yahya Sinwar, the elusive leader of Hamas regarded as the mastermind behind the militant group’s brutal attack on Israel last year, is dead.

Israel said Thursday it killed Sinwar during a military operation in Gaza.

Hamas has yet to comment, and it was not immediately clear what impact Sinwar’s death will have on the Israel-Hamas war.

Here’s what we know:

What’s the latest on the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar?
Israel’s Defense Forces announced it had killed three Hamas militants during a military operation in Gaza on Thursday and was investigating whether one of them was Sinwar.

A U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said Israel was conducting DNA tests on the victim’s body to determine if it was Sinwar.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz later confirmed Sinwar’s death.

“This is a significant and moral achievement for Israel and a victory for the entire free world against the axis of evil of radical Islam led by Iran,” Katz said in a statement.

A second U.S. official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said it appears Sinwar may have been killed in a mortar attack.

Katz said Sinwar’s death “opens the possibility” for the immediate release of the remaining hostages taken during Hamas’ attack on Israel last year and “paves the way for a change that will lead to a new reality in Gaza.”

Who is Yahya Sinwar?

Sinwar was the leader of Hamas, which staged a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages. He was considered one of the architects of the attack, which touched off a bloody war between Israel and Hamas that, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, has resulted in the deaths of more than 42,000 Palestinians.

Sinwar, 61, had been in charge of daily operations in Gaza before the Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. He was declared Hamas’ political leader after his predecessor, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in July by a bomb hidden in his guesthouse in Tehran.

Dubbed “The Face of Evil” by Israel, Sinwar was known for operating in secrecy, moving constantly and using trusted messengers for non-digital communication, three Hamas officials and one regional official told Reuters. He had not been seen in public since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel and was believed to be hiding in the network of tunnels that Hamas used to conceal weapons, fighters and hostages

BLUF
Hezbollah is crying out for peace because it does not have the upper hand. It is calling for a ceasefire because it is weak, and needs time to gather its strength

Hezbollah Wants a Ceasefire Now. Here’s Why Israel Shouldn’t Give Them One.

Ceasefire now? As much as Kamala Harris wants one and would capitalize upon one if it did materialize, the answer must be a firm no.

After exploding pagers and a series of carefully targeted Israeli airstrikes have completely decimated Hezbollah’s senior leadership, the jihad terror organization now wants a ceasefire with Israel. This will come as music to the ears of the Biden-Harris regime, which would like nothing better than an October peace agreement between Israel and one of the major players that are arrayed against it.

The Harris campaign could wave this agreement in the air every time someone pointed out that the world during the Trump years was a much more peaceful place than it is now, and use it going into the election as evidence of Kamala Harris’ superior negotiating skills. But for a number of important reasons, Israel should resist all pressure from Washington.

So far, the pressure for the moment is coming not from Washington, but from Hezbollah itself. CNN reported Tuesday that Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassem, who is the highest-ranking official in the organization at the moment (after Israel took out longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and several of his designated or potential successors) said, “We support the political efforts led by (Parliament Speaker Nabih) Berri under the banner of achieving a ceasefire. Once the ceasefire is firmly established and diplomacy can reach it, all other details will be discussed and decisions will be made collaboratively.”

Ceasefire! Diplomacy! Qassem knows how to push all the right buttons to get the U.S. State Department, the European Union, and the United Nations on his side, and even to shower billions upon his straitened organization. Kamala Harris has already sent $157 million to Lebanon, which means to Hezbollah.

Continue reading “”

Florida officials who banned guns prior to hurricane may soon pay for their ‘error’
Okeechobee city council, police chief, face fines of $5,000 each.

The five-member Okeechobee, Florida city council and Police Chief Donald Hagan may each be forced to pay $5,000 personally — without using taxpayer dollars — for violating Florida’s powerful preemption statute, which only allows the state legislature to regulate firearms.

As previously reported, the city adopted an illegal ordinance shortly before Hurricane Helene made landfall, which banned the sale of guns and ammunition and prohibited firearm possession in public by anyone other than law enforcement or members of the military.

After learning of the civil rights violation, Florida Carry, Inc. sent a demand letter titled Written Notice of Preemption Violation and Offer of Settlement, to the city council and Chief Hagan, warning the recipients they have violated Florida’s preemption statute.

The letter, which was written by Florida Carry, Inc. General Counsel Eric J. Friday, spelled out that the pro-gun group has sufficient standing to bring a lawsuit if the ordinance is not repealed within 30 days, and demanded the payment of $30,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees to “resolve this matter prior to initiation of litigation.”

Okeechobee City Attorney John J. Fumero, in a response sent Wednesday, claimed that the city’s Second Amendment violation was merely an “inadvertent mistake in using an outdated emergency ordinance form that, legally and factually, did not apply to the circumstances at hand regarding Hurricane Helene.”

Besides. Fumero wrote, no one ever enforced the illegal ordinance.

“At no time did the City, or the Police Chief, contemplate, nor take any action, to prohibit, confiscate or otherwise regulate firearms or ammunition in any fashion or manner. This was never the intention of the City. This was never implemented by the City. Moreover, to ensure this never happens again, the City has developed and implemented a new emergency ordinance form and process,” the city attorney wrote.

Fumero’s boss, Okeechobee Mayor Dowling R. Watford, Jr. and police spokesman Detective Jarret Romanello, gave numerous interviews to local media claiming city officials were reviewing the entire incident to determine how the “mistake” occurred. Romanello also claimed he looked forward to “providing more answers as soon as the review is complete.”

In his response, Fumero also balked at Florida Carry’s monetary demand.

“We see no legal, factual or public policy basis for your organization demanding payment of taxpayer dollars to satisfy your assertion of ‘damages and attorneys’ fees. The City is a rural small town that fundamentally believes in gun rights and the Second Amendment. From any standpoint, for Florida Carry, Inc. to take legal action against the City, under the circumstances described herein, is patently inappropriate and unjustified,” he wrote.

In an email reply to Fumero, Friday advised the city attorney to re-read Florida statute Sec. 790.33, which does not require actual enforcement of a preemption violation, since enactment itself is enough to prove liability.

“Inadvertence and ignorance of the law by government is no more of an excuse for violating civil rights than when a citizen ‘inadvertently’ violates the law and is arrested and prosecuted,” Friday wrote.

“I will begin drafting my Complaint seeking relief, including personal fines against the city officials under whose jurisdiction this knowing and willful enactment occurred.

You may want to inform the relevant officials that they are not allowed to use tax dollars to defend themselves from such liability, and that any fine assessed will be personally payable by them, to alleviate your concerns about tax dollars.”

Iran military chief ‘killed’ by Israeli air strike in Lebanon that targeted new leader of Hezbollah

One of Iran’s top military commanders is believed to have been killed in an Israeli attack that targeted the new leader of terror group Hezbollah.

Esmail Qaani, head of the Quds Force – the elite wing of the feared Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) – was reported to be with the new leader of Hezbollah, Hashem Safieddine, who was targeted in his HQ bunker in Beirut by the Israelis.

The air strike on Thursday night during heavy bombing of southern Beirut was mounted as Safieddine held a secret meeting with other Hezbollah leaders in the underground intelligence headquarters.

He had only just taken over from Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated by the Israelis last month.

Last night, Arabic and English language media in the Middle East were reporting that Safieddine is highly likely to have died.
Esmail Qaani (pictured), head of the Quds Force ¿ the elite wing of the feared Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) ¿ may also have been at the meeting

Esmail Qaani (pictured), head of the Quds Force – the elite wing of the feared Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) – may also have been at the meeting

Continue reading “”

Terror royalty: Nasrallah’s son-in-law killed in airstrike on Damascus, days after brother – report

Hassan Jafar Qassir’s reported assassination is another severe blow to Hezbollah as its leadership has been slowly picked off in Israeli operations.

Hassan Nasrallah’s son-in-law, Hassan Jafar Qassir, may have been killed in airstrikes in the Mezzeh neighborhood in Damascus on Wednesday, according to early reports published by Sky News Arabic.

Hassan is the brother of Muhammad Jafar Qassir, who was killed in a strike in Beirut on Wednesday during the Iranian attack on Israel.

Hassan’s assassination is another severe blow to Hezbollah as its leadership has been slowly picked off in Israeli operations.

Qassir brothers 

The Qassir brothers have been deeply involved in terrorism since at least the 1982 Lebanon War, when on November 11, Ahmad Qassir drove his car into an Israeli base in Tyre, detonating the explosives onboard. This marked the first suicide bombing in Lebanese history.

Ahmad was guided by one of Hezbollah’s founding figures, Imad Mughniya, who was mysteriously assassinated in Damascus in 2008.

His death is commemorated every year with “Martyr Day,” in which Hezbollah celebrates suicide bombing.

Ahmad’s attack still required the religious seal of approval in the form of a fatwa from one of Shia Islam’s highest-ranked clerics, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Terror royalty

With the fatwa secured, the Qassir family swiftly became terror royalty, with Ahmad being termed the “first martyr.”

His brothers, Muhammed and Hassan, both rose in the ranks of the nascent Hezbollah.

Muhammed became a leading figure in the deliveries of Iranian weapons from Syria, and Hassan married Hassan Nasrallah’s daughter, cementing their connection to Hezbollah and Iran.

Muhammed became such a notorious figure the US offered a $10 million reward for information leading to his death or capture.

In 2018, the US Treasury Department designated him a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, meaning “among other consequences, all property and interests in property of Qassir that are subject to US jurisdiction are blocked, and US persons are generally prohibited from engaging in any transactions with Qassir.”

According to the sanctions, he helped oversee several front companies that funneled money into Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in particular through the sale of oil and other untraceable products.

After Nasrallah, Another Hezbollah Leader Killed In Israeli Strike

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) conducted a precision strike in the Dahieh district of Beirut on Saturday, eliminating senior Hezbollah intelligence operative Hassan Khalil Yassin. This operation took place not long after Hezbollah declared Hassan Nasrallah, their erstwhile leader, dead.

Yassin oversaw a division that was in charge of locating military and civilian targets both inside Israeli territory and near the country’s northern border. Yassin had a key role in communicating with Hezbollah’s attack divisions, according to the IDF. Throughout the conflict, he was instrumental in organizing assaults on troops and civilians in Israel.

The IDF said that the attack on Yassin was led by the Military Intelligence Directorate. The military made a point of highlighting Yassin’s role in organizing more terror strikes that are expected to take place in the next few days. His removal is a component of a larger plan to undermine Hezbollah’s capacity for operations.

Prior attacks focused on a number of Hezbollah locations in Lebanon, including factories that produce rocket and missile launchers. The IDF targeted smuggling routes near the Syrian border on Friday night. These routes were essential for bringing parts and weaponry into Lebanon from the east. According to the IDF, these materials were sent to factories that make a range of weaponry, including missiles with precise guidance.

Hezbollah Confirms Its Leader Has Died in an Israeli Airstrike

Lebanon’s Hezbollah group confirmed on Saturday that its leader and one of its founders, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut the previous day.

A statement said Nasrallah “has joined his fellow martyrs.” Hezbollah vowed to “continue the holy war against the enemy and in support of Palestine.”

Nasrallah, who led Hezbollah for more than three decades, is by far the most powerful target to be killed by Israel in weeks of intensified fighting with Hezbollah. The Israeli military said it carried out a precise airstrike on Friday while Hezbollah leadership were meeting at their headquarters in Dahiyeh, south of Beirut.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said six people were killed and 91 injured in the strikes, which leveled six apartment buildings. Ali Karki, the commander of Hezbollah’s Southern Front and other commanders were also killed, the Israeli military said.

Continue reading “”

This Is the Most Deliciously Devious Part About Israel’s Exploding Pager Attacks

As a spy thriller fan, I love reading about the clever gadgets the good guys use to vanquish the bad guys, which is why I’ve been fascinated by the story of Hezbollah’s deadly exploding pagers. How did Israel pull this off? Was it really Israel who did this? This attack is even more exacting than the exploding bed at the Iranian “safe” house.

Now we’re learning more details of the attacks, and they’re as impressive as they are diabolical.

Three thousand beepers exploded this week, killing a bunch of Hezbollah terrorists and some innocents. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon lost an eye in the attack.

After that attack, Hezbollah began using walkie-talkies, and they exploded.

When the terrorists decided to meet in person in Lebanon Friday, someone bombed the meeting.

Israel has not confirmed it carried out the attacks, nor is it likely they will ever lay claim to them, but U.S. intelligence officials who talked to their favorite intelligence mouthpiece, the New York Times, claimed Israel pulled it off. Time will tell what the truth is.

This operation has obviously been planned for quite some time. Though Israeli intelligence agencies were completely caught off guard by Hezbollah’s Iran-backed October 7 attack, they appear to be trying to make up for that huge intelligence debacle.

Defense One reports that Hezbollah had a deal with a Taiwan company, Gold Apollo, to supply the Islamic supremacist terror organization with pagers. Someone probably needs to have a little chat with the Taiwan company that sells AR-924 pagers to terrorists, but they told whoever asked that they weren’t responsible for the pagers.

They pointed the finger of blame at a Hungarian firm called BAC Consulting KFT. This appears to be a shell company run by friendly or Israeli intelligence. Indeed, multiple Israeli cutouts may have been involved in the manufacturing and sales of the devices.

The Times reports that Israel “did not tamper with the Hezbollah devices that exploded, defense and intelligence officials say. It manufactured them as part of an elaborate ruse.”

That’s right. The shell company sold the rigged pagers manufactured by the good guys.

And this is the best part of the story—if you hate Islamo-Nazi terrorists, anyway—Hezbollah paid for its own rigged and exploding pagers.

Defense One characterized the “supply chain hack” operation as “legendary.” The hackers installed “tiny quantities of explosives into at least 3,000 pagers specially ordered by Iran-backed Hezbollah militants across Lebanon and Syria.” Legendary, indeed.

The pagers reportedly were laced with the chemical PETN.

The National Institutes of Health says that “Pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), CASRN 78-11-5, belongs to the class of compounds known as organic nitrates. It is used mainly as a demolition explosive and in the manufacture of detonating fuses and blasting caps…and is the main ingredient in Semtex, a plastic explosive.” Ah, Semtex. That’s a big boom-boom right there.

And the terrorist outfit handed out the pagers after they inspected them and still couldn’t detect the Semtex.

I guarantee you this episode will be in every spy thriller novel for 20 years forever.

The Times reports Iran’s terror proxies have been on their heels for a few years. The paper report that “in 2020, for example, Israel assassinated Iran’s top nuclear scientist using an A.I.-assisted robot controlled remotely via satellite.”

Like Afghanistan terror groups did after they realized U.S. drones could track their phones, Hezbollah has gone low-tech, hence the pagers, walkie-talkies, and in-person meetings.

More soberly, however, the exploding pagers and walkie-talkies killed more than a dozen bad guys, and 2,700 people were wounded, including some kids.

This was the reported breakdown of the casualties.

I guess some of the guys who lived won’t have the balls to reproduce and taint humanity’s gene pool anymore.

When you start feeling sorry for these guys, just remember what their Hezbollah buddies did to families, babies, and women on October 7, and then you’ll snap right out of it.

And Israel literally made them pay for their own deaths.

Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

BEIRUT (Reuters) -Hand-held radios used by Lebanese armed group Hezbollah detonated on Wednesday across Lebanon’s south and in Beirut suburbs, further stoking tensions with Israel a day after similar explosions launched via the group’s pagers.

Lebanon’s health ministry said nine people had been killed and more than 300 injured, while the death toll from Tuesday’s explosions rose to 12, including two children, with nearly 3,000 injured.

At least one of Wednesday’s blasts took place near a funeral organised by Iran-backed Hezbollah for those killed the previous day when thousands of pagers used by the group exploded across the country and wounded many of its fighters.

A Reuters reporter in the southern suburbs of Beirut said he saw Hezbollah members frantically taking out the batteries of any walkie-talkies on them that had not exploded, tossing the parts in metal barrels around them.

Lebanon’s Red Cross said on X that it was responding with 30 ambulance teams to multiple explosions in different areas, including the south of Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.

Hezbollah, which was thrown briefly into disarray by the pager attacks, said on Wednesday it had attacked Israeli artillery positions with rockets, the first strike at its arch-foe since the blasts wounded thousands of its members in Lebanon and raised the prospect of a wider Middle East war.

Images of the exploded walkie-talkies examined by Reuters showed an inside panel labelled “ICOM” and “made in Japan.”

According to its website, ICOM is a Japan-based radio communications and telephone company.

The company has said that production of several models of the ICOM hand-held radio have been discontinued, including the IC-V82, which appeared to closely match those in images from Lebanon on Wednesday and which was phased out in 2014.

There was no immediate reply from ICOM to a Reuters request for comment on Wednesday.

Continue reading “”

Israeli Air Strike Punches Senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards Commander’s Ticket

On Monday, a senior commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps was deleted from the rolls of the living by an Israeli air strike. The strike hit the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, killing Mohammad Reza Zahedi along with (reportedly) several Iranian diplomats.

An Israeli airstrike launched at the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria on Monday has killed Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, a Lebanese security source has told Reuters.

In 2010, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Zahedi, describing him as playing a key role in Iran’s support of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Reuters is reporting that its journalists at the scene in the Syrian capital saw smoke rising from the rubble of a building that was flattened in the airstrike. Israel has not confirmed its involvement.

“We do not comment on reports in the foreign media,” an Israeli military spokesperson told Reuters when asked about the matter.

One has to appreciate the wisdom of Israel not commenting on this at all; in taking out Zahedi, they determined to let a missile do their talking for them, and that would seem to be sufficient to make their point. Zahedi was not in Syria to play tiddlywinks; the Revolutionary Guard Corps commander was known to be a conduit to funnel Iranian weapons to Hezbollah and acted as a liaison between Iran, Hezbollah, and Syria. He was a guy who manifestly deserved to be removed from the game.

The U.S. Treasury said in 2010 that Zahedi “has also acted as a liaison to Hezbollah and Syrian intelligence services and is reportedly charged with guaranteeing weapons shipments to Hezbollah.”

 

This isn’t the first Iranian commander that Israel has un-alived in recent months.

Israel said in February that it killed a senior Hezbollah commander in a strike carried out in Lebanon.

The Israel Defense Forces had announced at the time that an overnight airstrike targeting a “Hezbollah military structure” in Nabatieh killed Ali Muhammad Aldbas, a senior commander of the Radwan forces. His deputy commander, Ibrahim Issa, and an additional terrorist were killed in the attack, according to the IDF.

It’s important to note that then the U.S. Treasury Department “sanctioned” Zahedi all the way back in 2010, it clearly seems to have had little to no effect on his actions. Israel’s sanction, delivered at several times the speed of sound, would appear to have been much more effective. The Israeli military has time and again proven their skill at making bad terrorists into good terrorists, and since the Oct 7th atrocities, they have picked up the pace.

Portland Declares Emergency Over Fentanyl Crisis Three Years After Decriminalizing Drug Possession

The idiots running Portland, Oregon have declared a 90-day state of emergency over an ongoing fentanyl crisis, just three years after decriminalizing possession of all drugs.

State, County and City officials declared the ‘tri-government’ fentanyl emergency following recommendations by the governor-established Portland Central City Task Force late last year. As part of the response, the city, state and county will work together to ‘tackle the crisis’ (sure!), which will include the establishment of a “command center” in the central city to coordinate efforts and “refocus existing resources.”

Fentanyl addicts who interact with first responders in downtown Portland over the next 90 days will be triaged in this new command center.

“Our country and our state have never seen a drug this deadly addictive, and all are grappling with how to respond,” said Gov. Tina Kotek (D).

According to Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, “We cannot underestimate the tremendous value of bringing leaders from different disciplines in a room on a daily basis who all account for a different part of the solution.”

Mike Meyers, director of Portland’s Community Safety Division will head up the command team, while deputy police chief Nathan Reynolds of the state’s Office of Resilience and Emergency Management will be the state’s incident commander. Continue reading “”