BLUF
In order to support Ukraine, the U.S. has expended its missile and artillery round stockpiles. The most optimistic estimates claim it will take six to eight months to replenish them.
In order to support Israel, the U.S. has moved naval assets to the Indian Ocean and eastern Mediterranean.
Does this expose the western Pacific to Chinese attack? In a U.S.-China war in the western Pacific, sea power will play the preeminent role. And right now, the U.S. Navy is short of warships.
If a TV admiral says otherwise, he’s lying.

On Point: Beijing, Pay Attention: Don’t Let Ukraine-Gaza Lead to WWIII Taiwan

FACT ONE: A major land war rages in Europe. Twenty months ago, Russia invaded Ukraine without provocation and the horror grinds on with mass casualties and World-War-I-like attrition.

FACT TWO: War in the Middle East. An Iranian proxy army, Hamas, launches a complex and well-planned attack on Israel. Mass atrocity by Islamist terrorists shocks the civilized world — at least what’s left of civilization.

OK, the Gaza Strip is a confined space.

FACT THREE: Iranian proxies have fired into northern Israel — from Syria and Lebanon. Israel could hit the proxies, then retaliate against Iran. Thus the Hamas War can quickly escalate to a regional conflict involving the Persian Gulf’s energy-exporting states. The global economic effects are dire.

Is war in Asia the next explosion igniting World War III?

To be accurate, several wars afflict Asia — and several of these wars involve powerful communist China.

China wages a frozen war with India in the Himalayas — the Sino-Indian War of 1962 is not over. Since the 1990s China has waged a slow but calculated war of territorial aggression in the South China Sea. In July 2016, The Hague’s international arbitral tribunal, relying on the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea treaty (UNCLOS), issued a ruling supporting the Philippines’ claims that China had violated Filipino territory in the South China Sea by seizing islets and “sea features.”

Despite having signed the U.N. treaty (and accepted the arbitration process), China’s communists disdained the court’s authority and ignored the verdict.

By ignoring the verdict, the Chinese Communist Party declared war on international order. Yes, that’s a world war of a subtle but dangerous sort.

Continue reading “”

“Protection” Cited As No. 1 Reason For Gun Buys, As 911 Delays Increase

Twenty-six percent of participants in a 1999 Pew Research survey who owned a gun said protection was the primary reason they exercised their Second Amendment rights. By 2013, the figure jumped to 48 percent. Results in 2017 indicated it climbed yet again, up to two-thirds, and this year’s results, released in late August, are higher—72 percent.

It’s a tidal change in attitude that began with the Y2K bug and apparently continues after the widespread violence and social unrest that plagued the COVID 19 pandemic. The dramatic increase in the time it takes first responders to arrive, regardless of where you live or affluence of the community, is one of the diving factors. Seconds count when an attacker is at the door, in your face or on a loved one.

Volume of 911 calls is a driving factor, but there’s another. Law-enforcement officers are leaving the job in record numbers and young adults, who might otherwise enroll in an academy and soon work a beat, succumb to the fashionably inaccurate perception of the profession. As a result, applicants across the nation continue to decline, and those who pass the stringent requirements don’t fill vacancies fast enough.

In April ABC News warned, “Police departments across the country are facing a ‘vicious cycle’ of retirements, resignations and fewer hires, according to policing experts, leaving the communities they protect with understaffed departments and potentially underqualified officers.”

One study found 911 response time in New Orleans nearly tripled from 2019 to 2022. The same report found New York’s figures jumped from 18 minutes to 33 minutes. For comparison, Big Apple law enforcement response time in 1999 was 10.3 minutes, according to the New York Times.

In Nashville, Tenn., Metro Police averaged 73 minutes to respond in 2022. Urgent calls are life-threatening and tracked separately when they come into emergency dispatch. According to a February report from WSMV4 TV—an NBC affiliate in Nashville, Tenn.—“…response time for emergency calls increased from 10.7 minutes to 15 minutes, in the last three years.” Four minutes, 18 seconds seems like the blink of an eye when at work, it’s eternity when a family member is attacked.

The nation’s capital isn’t immune either. WTOP News there found residents experienced an additional 90-second delay in response to Priority 1 [the most urgent] calls to 911 just in the 12 months of 2021.

The numbers make it obvious. More law-abiding citizens than before understand owning a firearm and training are the best way to survive, especially when seconds count, and police are minutes away.

Female homeowner shoots alleged home invasion robber in Hollywood Hills

LOS ANGELES – A female homeowner in the Hollywood Hills took matters into her own hands after someone attempted to break into her home, authorities said.

An official with the Los Angeles Police Department said the shooting was reported just before 9:30 p.m. Sunday in the 2800 block of Hollyridge Drive in the Beachwood Canyon community.

The homeowner told LAPD investigators she first saw the suspect in her backyard before he made his way to one of her doors and attempted forcible entry. She asked the suspect to leave, but he apparently refused.

She continued to feel threatened after the suspect reached into his pocket and she thought he was getting out a weapon. That’s when the homeowner opened fire and struck the suspect. He was taken to an area hospital where he remains in critical condition.

The homeowner has not been detained in the shooting.

No further information was immediately available and the investigation is ongoing.

Landry win in Louisiana puts Constitutional Carry on the table

With Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry’s stunning victory in the gubernatorial jungle primary over the weekend, the state will soon have a GOP trifecta; majority control of both chambers of the legislature as well as the governor’s office. That should help clear the way for the passage of Constitutional Carry, though I’m not quite as confident as FPC’s Rob Romano is.

 

I think this definitely improves the chances that Louisiana will become the 28th Constitutional Carry state in 2024, but it’s important to remember what happened with permitless carry this year. While the House overwhelmingly approved Rep. Danny McCormick’s bill, the legislation never got to the desk of Gov. John Bel Edwards because it died in the GOP-controlled State Senate back in early June.

House Bill 131 would have eliminated all training and permitting requirements to carry a concealed firearm, provided gun owners are over 21 and aren’t barred from owning a gun under state or federal law. But its sponsor, Rep. Danny McCormick, R-Oil City, pulled the measure after lawmakers on the Senate Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee sought to amend it heavily.

Amendments proposed Tuesday by the committee would have let people carry concealed weapons only if they took education courses and were entered in a state database to show completion of those courses.

“My supporters wouldn’t want any required training or a government list that their name would go on,” McCormick told the committee.…

Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards in 2021 vetoed similar legislation that both chambers had approved with veto-proof, two-thirds majorities. But when it came to overriding Edwards’ veto, the state Senate couldn’t corral enough votes.

The bill will likely come before the Legislature again in future years.

Oh, it’s definitely coming back. McCormick has made it clear that he’ll once again be introducing a permitless carry bill for the 2024 session. In fact, he tied that measure to a gun raffle he hosted in August as part of his re-election campaign. Like Landry, McCormick won the jungle primary in House District 1 outright over the weekend, pulling in 66% of the vote to Democrat Randall Liles’ 34%.

With McCormick heading back to Baton Rouge and Landry moving into the governor’s mansion, the pressure will be on state senators to finally get on board with permitless carry, especially since Landry made passage of the measure one of his campaign issues.

“The current governor of this state has vetoed constitutional carry but we’re going in and passing that,” Landry told Breitbart, referring to Democrat John Bel Edwards. “The problems are not the guns; the problems are cultural. The problems are broken families, the problems are poor educational opportunities, the problems are not supporting programs that teach the proper use and handling of firearms.”…

Landry told Breitbart that he would be “focused” as governor on strengthening Second Amendment rights in the state.

“I support further strengthening the rights of our citizens, their ability to exercise the Second Amendment of the constitution, and I will be focused on any way that we can strengthen that at the state level,” he told the news outlet.

The odds are definitely in gun owners’ favor now, but Louisianans can’t take it for granted that permitless carry is going to make it to Landry’s desk for his signature. Second Amendment supporters in the Sportsmen’s Paradise turned out to vote for a pro-2A candidate this past weekend, but now they need to contact their state reps and senators and urge them to get with the program and back McCormick’s bill in order to get it across the finish line and enshrined into law.

ATF Seeks to Muzzle Gun Owners of America Advocacy Group

In 2021, AmmoLand News disclosed documents that indicated the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) had been using the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) to surveil Americans without proper authorization. Often, these individuals were monitored solely based on associations rather than concrete evidence of misconduct. This revelation prompted the Gun Owners of America (GOA) to seek further details via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

In a 2021 exposé, reporter John Crump unveiled that leaked ATF records showed a secretive surveillance operation targeting numerous legal gun buyers. This was accomplished by monitoring all gun transactions processed through the NICS system, as detailed by GOA.

After facing potential legal actions and a year of persistence, ATF released some information concerning the initiative. However, inconsistencies in redaction led GOA to seek complete versions of these records. Upon realizing their oversight, the ATF pressed GOA to erase all obtained records.

Yet, GOA resisted. They had legally received the documents from ATF and believed they had every entitlement to retain and utilize them for public awareness regarding unauthorized surveillance. In a subsequent move, the ATF sought a legal directive against GOA, demanding the deletion of the records and a commitment to silence.

This situation mirrored a prior incident involving AmmoLand News in the AutoKey Card case. In that instance, backed by GOA-funded legal support from Stephen Stamboulieh, AmmoLand News successfully resisted ATF’s efforts to silence them. Now, with the tables turned, GOA has enlisted Stamboulieh to challenge another ATF attempt at suppression.

GOA firmly maintains that since they legally acquired the documents, they have full rights over them. They are willing to eliminate personal details like social security numbers but will resist a comprehensive deletion mandate. They allege that ATF’s primary intention is to conceal their clandestine surveillance.

GOA’s legal briefing emphasizes the importance of upholding First Amendment rights, highlighting the extraordinary nature of ATF’s request and labeling it as potentially unconstitutional.

While ATF asserts a motive of privacy protection for its subjects, GOA counters this by pointing out the inherent irony. The ATF’s very operation intrudes upon individual privacy. GOA’s intention is to make these records available to Congress, suggesting that ATF might be keen on keeping this information away from its regulators.

GOA’s briefing also notes, “It’s a profound paradox that while ATF claims to safeguard gun owners’ privacy, they are the very entity spying and collecting personal data on these individuals.” GOA has urged the judiciary to uphold their First Amendment rights and dismiss ATF’s claims against public interest.

With the ATF fervently attempting to suppress details about this operation, many are left pondering, “What is the ATF concealing?”

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Dan Bongino

If Biden were trying to elevate the terror threat level in our country he wouldn’t do anything different.
Opening the border to terrorists, handicapping domestic oil production in favor of Middle Eastern oil, draining our oil reserves, spending us into a bankruptcy nightmare, focusing our counter-terror agencies on political opponents, and decimating our domestic manufacturing capabilities in favor of his Green New Deal dystopia.
If he were trying to create conditions ripe for an attack, this is how he would do it.

Judge Bars Trump From Campaigning Against His Top Political Opponent

A U.S. District Court judge has barred former President Donald Trump from campaigning against his top political opponent: the federal government.

On Monday, Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a gag order to prohibit the Republican frontrunner from speaking out on the case just more than a year out from the next election. The order bars Trump from publicly defending himself against attacks from potential witnesses, court personnel, or federal prosecutors in the case, including Special Counsel Jack Smith.

“This is not about whether I like the language Mr. Trump uses,” Judge Chutkan reportedly said. “This is about language that presents a danger to the administration of justice.”

The order itself, however, presents a danger to American democracy. Democrats are already trying to prevent Americans from being given the chance to vote on the former president. Now, far-left activists are wielding the judiciary to prevent Trump from leading an effective campaign. With a more than 45-point lead in the Republican primary, Trump isn’t running against the other candidates attempting to challenge him. He’s running against the Department of Justice, and the Department of Justice under President Joe Biden is running against him with 44 federal indictments to thwart the GOP frontrunner’s triumphant return.

The special counsel prosecuting Trump over protestors’ 2021 attack on the Capitol requested the gag order in September, alleging the former president’s statements over the case sought to “undermine the integrity of these proceedings and prejudice the jury pool.” Yet the proceedings were undermined from the start with the selection of Judge Chutkan to preside over the politically charged case in the nation’s capital. Just more than a week after Smith requested the gag order, Chutkan refused a motion from Trump’s legal team that she recuse herself from the trial.

There has never been any doubt on how Chutkan might rule on consequential decisions since the Jan. 6 indictments were first handed down on Aug. 1. An activist judge with an obvious animus against the former president and his supporters, federal prosecutors could not have been given a more friendly judge in a district more friendly to the government’s case. Beyond the fact residents in Washington D.C. voted for Biden over Trump in 2020 by a whopping 92 to 5 percent, an Emerson College survey found a majority, 64 percent, had already made up their minds to vote in favor of convicting Trump if they were selected for his jury. Only 8 percent said they would find Trump innocent, and another 28 percent were unsure. Chutkan herself is likely among those who would vote in favor of convicting based on recent rulings and statements.

According to the Associated Press in August, the Obama-appointed judge built a reputation as “a tough punisher of Capitol rioters.” Chutkan presided over more than three dozen cases of those charged with crimes related to the Capitol riot.

“Other judges typically have handed down sentences that are more lenient than those requested by prosecutors,” reported the AP. “Chutkan, however, has matched or exceeded prosecutors’ recommendations in 19 of her 38 sentences. In four of those cases, prosecutors weren’t seeking any jail time at all.”

Chutkan has also condemned comparisons of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot to the deadly riots for so-called “social justice” of 2020. The fiery riots, she claimed in one hearing, were actually “the actions of people protesting, mostly peacefully, for civil rights.” The Capitol riot, on the other hand, was an attempt to “violently overthrow the government.” Never mind the $2 billion worth of damage, making the outbreak of leftist violence one of the most destructive in American history, and “protestors” targeting of federal buildings. The carnage from the summer of rage cost 66 times more than the estimated damage done to the Capitol in the hours-long riot.

Trump’s Republican rivals attacked him for shelling out a disproportionate amount of campaign funds for his own legal defense. Those attacks, however, fail to grapple with the reality that for Trump, his serious opponents aren’t the other Republicans in the race. His primary contest is one with the federal government trying to silence him.

October 16

1793 – Queen Marie Antoinette is executed on the guillotine

1817 – Italian explorer and archaeologist Giovanni Belzoni, discovers the tomb of Pharaoh Seti I in the Valley of the Kings.

1846 – Dr. William T. G. Morton demonstrates the administration of ether anesthesia for surgical operations at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

1859 – John Brown, leading 21 men, raids the U.S. Armory and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.

1875 – Brigham Young University is founded in Provo, Utah.

1882 – The New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad opens for business, connecting Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Toledo.

1909 – Mexican President Porfirio Díaz visits President William Taft in El Paso and Taft returns the visit by traveling to Ciudad Juarez where they narrowly miss being assassinated by a lone gunman who was captured mere feet away from them.

1916 – Margaret Sanger opens the first “family planning” clinic in Brooklyn

1919 – Adolf Hitler delivers his first public address at a meeting of the German Workers’ Party.

1939 – 603 Squadron RAF, flying Spitfires, intercepts the first Luftwaffe raid on Great Britain also making the first fighter kill of the war over the country.

1940 – The Warsaw Ghetto is established.

1946 – 10 Nazis found guilty by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremburg for crimes against humanity are executed by hanging.

1962 – President Kennedy is informed of the aerial photos taken on October 14 of Russian nuclear missiles being installed in Cuba

1964 – With the assistance of the Soviets,  China detonates its first nuclear device at their Lop Nur test site in Xinjiang province,  a uranium implosion device of equivalent power to the one the U.S. used to bomb Nagasaki

1975 – 3 year old Rahima Banu, from Bangladesh, is the last known case of naturally occurring smallpox.

1991 – A man kills 23 and wounds 20 more people after driving his truck into Luby’s restaurant in Killeen, Texas. One of the patrons, Suzanna Gratia Hupp, left her handgun in her vehicle instead of breaking the law, and later continued to campaign for Texas concealed carry until it was passed into law 4 years later.

1998 – Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is arrested in London on a murder extradition warrant.

BLUF
Now, I don’t think for a minute that Biden is “directing all of this” — he’s getting directed by his staff. But even CBS is now throwing him under the bus by questioning his age and ability to do the job. You know how bad the interview truly was when that’s the takeaway.

More on Disastrous Biden Interview: Scott Pelley Has to Help Him Finish Sentence, Says President ‘Tired’

I wrote earlier about a couple of the teaser clips from the “60 Minutes” interview with Joe Biden.

Those were bad, but the complete interview was even worse.

First, we should note that there was a little bit of water-carrying for Joe Biden with host Scott Pelley saying that the president was fitting them into his busy schedule on Thursday.

Biden had his 10 a.m. daily briefing and a 4:30 meeting where he just had to sit and listen to CEOs, how is that busy? Maybe it’s “busy” for an 80-year-old who has so many issues. But that’s why he shouldn’t even be there.

Biden seemed completely at sea throughout the interview, and so old.

Pelley asked if he could foresee U.S. troops involved in the Israeli war. Notice his answer: it wasn’t “no.”

It was “I don’t think it’s necessary” because “Israel has one of the finest fighting forces in the country.” Um, Joe? Israel is its own country, it’s not part of the U.S., what are you even saying here? In what country?

Then he threw Israel under the bus with this confusing remark, saying they should not reoccupy Gaza, that he thought that would be a “big mistake.” Funny, that’s just what Iran was hoping Joe would say, and there he is right on cue. You can see him struggling to answer this question.

Pelley asks what was his message to “Hezbollah and its backer Iran.” Biden’s response wouldn’t exactly send fear down any bad actor’s back, and Pelley even had to finish his thought for him.

I’m sure Iran is quaking in their boots right now.

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Suzanne Somers, ‘Three’s Company’ actress, dead at 76

Suzanne Somers, the actress who lit up the small screen on “Three’s Company” and one of TV’s most iconic fitness pitchwomen, has died, according to a statement provided to CNN from her longtime publicist R. Couri Hay. She was 76.

“Suzanne Somers passed away peacefully at home in the early morning hours of October 15th. She survived an aggressive form of breast cancer for over 23 years,” Hay wrote in a statement shared on behalf of the actress’ family.

The statement said Somers “was surrounded by her loving husband Alan, her son Bruce, and her immediate family.”

“Her family was gathered to celebrate her 77th birthday on October 16th. Instead, they will celebrate her extraordinary life, and want to thank her millions of fans and followers who loved her dearly,” the statement added.

BLUF
So what is the FBI and the rest of the intelligence/law-enforcement apparatus missing now? When we find out, it will be too late.

Israel’s intelligence failure is a warning for America’s politicized agencies

Some people are calling it “Israel’s 9/11.”

That makes sense, in that Hamas’ massacre was a totally unexpected massive terrorist attack with a huge body count of innocent people.

Not as many people died as on 9/11 (though proportionately to Israel’s population it was worse than 9/11 was for America).

Because the assault involved shootings, rapes and kidnappings, it seems somehow more personal than the jets of 9/11.

But there’s one way in which it was identical, and that’s the “totally unexpected” part.

Like American intelligence agencies before 9/11, Israel’s security services were caught flat-footed.

Both American and Israeli officials have said it was a complete surprise.

Continue reading “”

Maybe if the bureaucraps wouldn’t have been infiltrating Churches, Parent’s Groups and ‘MAGA” rallies, instead of doing their Constitutional duty to protect each of them (the states) against Invasion by these Jumpin Jihadis, we wouldn’t have this to worry about.

FBI director warns of rise in terror threats against Americans, potential copy-cat attacks on US soil.

The head of the FBI is ominously warning there is a rising number of terror threats against the US — and that the biggest concern involves potential lone wolves pulling off Hamas copy-cat attacks here.

Agency chief Christopher Wray, 56, urged law enforcement to be extra cautious about ripple effects from the raging Israeli-Palestinian conflict during an address at the International Association of Chiefs of Police annual conference in San Diego on Saturday.

“History has been witness to antisemitic and other forms of violent extremism for far too long,” he said, according to an FBI transcript. “We remain committed to continue confronting those threats.

“In this heightened environment, there’s no question we’re seeing an increase in reported threats, and we’ve got to be on the lookout, especially for lone actors who may take inspiration from recent events to commit violence of their own,” he added.

Wray’s warning came a day after former Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal’s designated a “Day of Jihad” on Oct. 13.

The FBI director did not divulge any specific domestic threats that the bureau may be grappling with directly stemming from the war but rather issued the broad warning.

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Reports: Army’s Lake City Ammunition Plant Cancels Commercial Ammunition Contracts

Last year we reported that Susan Rice the Biden administration, as part of its unrelenting war on guns and those who own them, was moving to cut off civilian sales of ammunition produced at the Army’s Lake City ammunition plant in Independence, Missouri. Lake City cranks out as much as 30% of the commercial .223/5.56 ammunition sold in this country.

As the NSSF remarked at the time . . .

This policy to deny the sale of excess ammunition not only would freeze over 30 percent of the 5.56 mm/.223 caliber ammunition used by law-abiding gun owners, it risks the ammunition industry’s ability to surge production capacity for national defense if the costs to maintain the present workforce isn’t recouped through sales to the civilian market.

While we couldn’t get Winchester (who operates the plant under contract with the Army) to comment on the situation, the report was well-sourced by those with direct knowledge of what was happening at the time. We obviously were on to something because the White House went so far as issuing a non-denial denial of the report.

A good measure of how real the threat by the administration was at the time might have been that 50 members of Congress issued a call to the administration to walk back the policy. The BidenBots apparently concluded at the time that the anti-gun juice wasn’t worth the political squeeze and Lake City continued producing for the civilian market.

However, we started hearing from a number of people late this week that Lake City had moved to cancel all of its commercial contracts. We’ve also been told that distributor supplies of .223/5.56 had begun to be drained, as a result of the move by Lake City and in anticipation of higher civilian ammunition demand following last week’s terrorist attacks in Israel. Then Staple Defense published this report.

Lake City typically sells off its excess capacity ammo, over and above the military’s needs,  to keep its operations fully running and employees on the payroll. If, as it appears, these latest reports are accurate, the reason this time may have less due to the administration’s desire to jack up domestic ammo costs (thus sticking it to civilian gun owners) than it is to anticipation by the US military that its needs may be increasing in the very near future.

Given U.S. support for Ukraine, a new war breaking out in Israel, and other potential points of instability, the Lake City move may portend more bad things in the offing. And one of them may be scarcer, more expensive ammo for your AR-15.

Watch this space.

All your printers are belong to us

Background checks for printer purchases

New bill intro by Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar, A-8132, Requires a criminal history background check for the purchase of a three-dimensional printer capable of creating firearms; prohibits sale to a person who would be disqualified on the basis of criminal history from being granted a license to possess a firearm.

From the bill memorandum:

Three-dimensionally printed firearms, a type of untraceable ghost gun, can be built by anyone using an $150 three-dimensional printer.

Three-dimensional printed guns are growing more prevalent each year. There were 100 taken off the streets of New York City in 2019. That number skyrocketed to 637 in 2022.

Concurrently, ghost gun shootings have risen 1,000% across the nation. Currently, three-dimensional printers allow people to make, buy, sell, and use untraceable guns without any background checks.

This bill will require a background check so that three-dimensional printed firearms do not get in the wrong hands.