How an Escalation in Drone Warfare Cost Three U.S. Servicemen Their Lives

Sometimes you’ve got to hand it to the bad guys for being so murderously clever in ways few could imagine. Or worse, in ways that a few forward-thinkers did imagine but that those in power didn’t take seriously.

One of those just happened in Jordan over the weekend, as I’m sure you already know, when Iran’s proxies in Syria used a drone to kill three U.S. servicemen in neighboring Jordan and injure at least 34 more. But Sunday’s attack wasn’t just another run-of-the-mill kamikaze drone strike — the kind we’ve seen more than 150 of on our forces in the region since Hamas launched its terror invasion of southern Israel on October 7.

This one was far more clever, exposing a weakness in our defenses and a failure in our imaginations — and not for the first time.

American Army Air Corps pilot and airpower pioneer Billy Mitchell died almost six years before Imperial Japan’s naval aviators crippled our battleship fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, but he predicted exactly such a scenario decades in advance. In 1910 he warned, “That increasing friction between Japan and the U.S. will take place in the future there can be little doubt, and that this will lead to war sooner or later seems quite certain,” and that Japan would initiate hostilities with an aerial bombardment of ships at anchor in Pearl Harbor.

Our top brass and political leaders dismissed the Japanese with racist notions about how they “were supposedly physiologically incapable of being good aviators because they lacked a sense of balance and their eyes were not right.” Navy leadership also insisted that it would be impossible for Japanese carriers to sneak up on us.

Oops.

Flash forward to 1994 and Tom Clancy’s latest techno-thriller, “Debt of Honor.” The book’s unlikely plot centered on a group of Japanese businessmen who, like the Imperial military in the 1930s, co-opted the government for their own ends. In this case, crippling the U.S. military in the Pacific to establish an all-new Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. At the end, with the cabal defeated, one desperate Japanese ultranationalist steals a grounded JAL airliner and crashes it into the Capitol Building while Congress is fêting our victorious president, killing nearly everyone present.

Not even Clancy had imagination enough to predict such an act committed with multiple planes, each full of terrified civilians. But no one in Washington made any preparations at all, even for the all-too-realistic scenario Clancy wrote about seven years before 9/11.

While not a failure of imagination on anything like the scale of Pearl Harbor or 9/11, Iran’s proxies showed real imagination in plotting their Sunday attack. A Defense Department official, speaking anonymously, told Politico today that the Syrian militiamen saw “an opportunity” in our defenses and “exploited” it.

They flew their drone into Tower 22 undetected by tailgating one of our own drones returning from a surveillance mission. It then struck the living quarters at Tower 22, resulting in those terrible casualties.

“Check your six” is a reminder to look behind you and see if there’s a bad guy sneaking up. We either didn’t think to do that, or the drone operator was unable to do that, and the results were deadly.

Global Warming: Observations vs. Climate Models.

 SUMMARY

Warming of the global climate system over the past half-century has averaged 43 percent less than that produced by computerized climate models used to promote changes in energy policy. In the United States during summer, the observed warming is much weaker than that produced by all 36 climate models surveyed here. While the cause of this relatively benign warming could theoretically be entirely due to humanity’s production of carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning, this claim cannot be demonstrated through science. At least some of the measured warming could be natural. Contrary to media reports and environmental organizations’ press releases, global warming offers no justification for carbon-based regulation.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The observed rate of global warming over the past 50 years has been weaker than that predicted by almost all computerized climate models.

Climate models that guide energy policy do not even conserve energy, a necessary condition for any physically based model of the climate system.

Public policy should be based on climate observations—which are rather unremarkable—rather than climate models that exaggerate climate impacts.

 

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New Mexico Senator Can’t Defend Waiting Period Bill, Predicts SCOTUS Will Reverse Itself on Bruen Instead

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If Anyone Needs to Explain Why They Need Guns, It’s the EPA

We don’t talk a lot about the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, all that much. For the most part, they don’t get into guns or gun politics. There’s no reason for us to talk about them here, even if they are managing to do a lot of stupid stuff in general.

But, it seems, that the EPA isn’t completely out of the discussion on guns.

You see, while there are many who lament the Bruen decision because we no longer have to justify why we want to carry, some rather bizarre federal agencies, including the EPA, have been spending a lot of money on guns.

Topline: The Environmental Protection Agency isn’t traditionally associated with ranged weaponry, but the federal government has spent almost $620,000 since 2018 to buy guns, ammunition, and more for EPA employees.

Key facts: Auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found that between 2018 and 2022, the EPA spent close to $400,000 of federal funds just on ammunition. That came after the EPA purchased 500,000 rounds of ammo and 600 guns from 2010-2017.

Over $100,000 went to buying armor for EPA employees. Funds were also used for “optical sighting and ranging equipment,” for “night vision equipment” and “security vehicles.”

Background: The EPA has a Criminal Enforcement Program, which had a budget of more than $70 million in 2023. Its goals include “protecting communities with environmental justice concerns” and curbing illegal sales of pesticides.

The EPA also has its own Office of Homeland Security, which provides “systemic preparation” for climate and environment related threats. Its budget was nearly $90 million last year.

Those divisions include 259 employees with job titles of “Criminal Investigation” or some similar variation. Those employees collectively earned almost $32 million in salary last year, with 217 of them making six figures.

Now, I don’t have an issue with a federal regulatory agency having investigators in and of itself. Whether I like regulations or not, the current status quo is violating those regulations constitutes a crime, so it makes sense for the regulators to have investigators.

But we’re talking $620,000 spent in firearms and ammo for 259 employees. That’s nearly $2,400 spent per investigator, and to be frank, I’m not sure any of them actually need to be armed.

See, the EPA is a regulatory agency, not a law enforcement agency. If they find an arrest is needed, they should be able to call the local FBI field office and get them to go in. The FBI, of course, has plenty of guns already.

What bothers me is that people want folks like you and me to have to justify why we “need” guns, but thinks nothing of federal agencies buying firearms left and right.

As the above-linked post notes, other agencies are also stocking up on guns including the Social Security Administration and the Department of Labor. This isn’t new, though, since we’ve known for more than a decade about the Department of Education having had a SWAT Team.

The truth of the matter is that I want justification why every agency in the federal government seems to have guns purchased with our tax dollars. It’s not because I disbelieve in guns, but because every penny the federal government spends comes out of our pockets. They need to justify every dime, in my book, especially as so many federal agencies try to infringe on our right to have firearms.

Remember that the ATF started as a tax collection agency and morphed over time into federal law enforcement. If we don’t start demanding answers for this waste, we’re likely to see it happen elsewhere.

And the EPA is just one example.

After all, I’m not sure I want to trust guns to an agency that thought a mud puddle counted as “navigable waters” in any way, shape, or form.

Solid good report from Dad’s MOHS surgery on the basal cell carcinoma. He’s got a line of sutures about 3 inches long on the top of his head that looks like someone took a machete to him, but he says he’s feeling fine.

What did I mention just last week?

BLUF
Now, we’re all subjects. Last week, four fearful women and a spectacularly weak man, hiding behind their robes of office in a Court whose only constitutionally mandated member is the Chief Justice — leaving the rest to be self-aggrandized — refused to protect the nation without a word of explanation. Message: obey.

Perhaps they’ve forgotten the opening words of the Declaration: “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another…” If so, what happens next is on them.

The Cold Civil War Gets Warmer

More than a decade ago, somewhere in the pages of National Review Online and writing under the name of my alter-ego, David Kahane, I coined the term, the Cold Civil War, and amplified the subject in my book, Rules for Radical Conservatives. 

Despite all the evidence of the past several decades, you still have not grasped one simple fact: that, just about a century after the last one ended, we engaged in a great civil war, one that will determine the kind of country we and our descendants shall henceforth live in for at least the next hundred years — and, one hopes, a thousand. Since there hasn’t been any shooting, so far, some call the struggle we are now involved in the “culture wars,” but I have another, better name for it: the Cold Civil War.

Hasn’t been any shooting so far. But with his recent rejection of federal authority, Texas governor Greg Abbott may have turned up the heat. Just as the South did during the first Civil War, Texas — supported by fully half the states now — has effectively nullified a Supreme Court order via the simple expedient of ignoring it. In this Abbott recalls another southern president, Andrew Jackson, who (perhaps apocryphally) in the case of Worcester v. Georgia (1832), said, “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”

Or, to paraphrase Stalin, how many divisions does John Roberts have? The Court’s authority derives from the will and the respect of the governed. But when an institution turns rogue, and refuses to act in defense of the nation in the face of clear and present danger, all bets are off.

It’s notable that all four of the women on the Court — at least two too many, but a potent indicator of the continuing feminization of the Republic — flocked together, with Roberts the deciding vote. By now, conservatives are used to getting stabbed in the back from this enduring legacy of the Bush II administration, right up there with the Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security/TSA. Bush may be gone — and not all that gone, when you think about it — but the evil he did lives on:

Three former U.S. presidents – Republican George W. Bush and Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama – have banded together behind a new group aimed at supporting refugees from Afghanistan settling in the United States following the recent American withdrawal ending 20 years of war. The former leaders and their wives will serve as part of Welcome.US, a coalition of advocacy groups, U.S. businesses and other leaders.

Just what we need, another “advocacy group,” as if the U.S. government itself hasn’t already been transformed into one under these three presidents and their love child, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. But here we are, in the middle of the biggest mass invasion in American history, a tidal wave of largely penurious humanity, unvetted, unchecked, of unknown health status, many of them without passports or any form of identification, criminals upon crossing our borders, and none of them bearing any loyalty to the country — and until recently, no one raised a hand to stop it.

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NSA finally admits to spying on Americans by purchasing sensitive data. Violating Americans’ privacy “not just unethical but illegal,” senator says.

The National Security Agency (NSA) has admitted to buying records from data brokers detailing which websites and apps Americans use, US Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) revealed Thursday.

This news follows Wyden’s push last year that forced the FBI to admit that it was also buying Americans’ sensitive data. Now, the senator is calling on all intelligence agencies to “stop buying personal data from Americans that has been obtained illegally by data brokers.”

“The US government should not be funding and legitimizing a shady industry whose flagrant violations of Americans’ privacy are not just unethical but illegal,” Wyden said in a letter to Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines. “To that end, I request that you adopt a policy that, going forward,” intelligence agencies “may only purchase data about Americans that meets the standard for legal data sales established by the FTC.”

Wyden suggested that the intelligence community might be helping data brokers violate an FTC order requiring that Americans are provided “clear and conspicuous” disclosures and give informed consent before their data can be sold to third parties. In the seven years that Wyden has been investigating data brokers, he said that he has not been made “aware of any company that provides such a warning to users before collecting their data.”

The FTC’s order came after reaching a settlement with a data broker called X-Mode, which admitted to selling sensitive location data without user consent and even to selling data after users revoked consent.

In his letter, Wyden referred to this order as the FTC outlining “new rules,” but that’s not exactly what happened. Instead of issuing rules, FTC settlements often serve as “common law,” signaling to marketplaces which practices violate laws like the FTC Act.

According to the FTC’s analysis of the order on its site, X-Mode violated the FTC Act by “unfairly selling sensitive data, unfairly failing to honor consumers’ privacy choices, unfairly collecting and using consumer location data, unfairly collecting and using consumer location data without consent verification, unfairly categorizing consumers based on sensitive characteristics for marketing purposes, deceptively failing to disclose use of location data, and providing the means and instrumentalities to engage in deceptive acts or practices.”

The FTC declined to comment on whether the order also applies to data purchases by intelligence agencies. In defining “location data,” the FTC order seems to carve out exceptions for any data collected outside the US and used for either “security purposes” or “national security purposes conducted by federal agencies or other federal entities.”

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Just me, but if Texas is going to buck a tyrannical DC about the border, why not about building LNG plants and drilling for more and telling DC where they can go and how to get there?

Land Commissioner Says Biden Stopped Approval of LNG Exports in Retaliation of Texas’ Defiance

The Texas Land Commissioner is accusing President Joe Biden of deliberately ending the approval of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) exports. 

Dawn Buckingham believes Biden is playing political games with Texas after the state “took a bold stand in defending our border against foreign invaders.”

Stopping the approval of(LNG) exports looks “more like retaliation than a sound policy decision,” Buckingham said. 

On January 26, Biden announced he was placing a “temporary pause on pending decisions of Liquified Natural Gas exports.” This was the same day the Department of Homeland Security sent a letter to the State of Texas demanding access to Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, Texas. 

Buckingham called the decision “reckless,” saying that it was done in spite rather than of policy decisions. 

“I will always defend Texas’ right to energy independence and stand up for the hardworking families and countless Texas schoolchildren this move will harm,” the commissioner said.

In defense, Biden claimed his decision was aligned with his policies to “tackle the climate crisis at home and abroad. While MAGA Republicans willfully deny the urgency of the climate crisis, condemning the American people to a dangerous future, my Administration will not be complacent.”

Texas is the largest exporter of natural gas in the United States and the third-largest in the world.

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New Data Shatters Liberal Myths About Gun Violence & Constitutional Carry

Amid constant leftist fearmongering about the supposedly disastrous consequences of allowing Americans to exercise their Second Amendment freedoms, new data shows that expanding rights for responsible gun owners – and actually punishing gun crimes – makes states safer.

According to a report from Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost released in January, “six of Ohio’s eight largest cities saw less gun crime after the state’s ‘constitutional carry’ law took effect.” In June 2022, Ohio became the 23rd state in the nation to legalize constitutional carry, or permitless carry, which allows residents to carry a concealed firearm without having to undergo a burdensome and time-consuming permitting process. Since then, four more states have passed constitutional carry, bringing the total to 27.

Notably, Ohio’s law as well as constitutional carry laws in other states still prohibit certain people from buying or possessing a firearm, such as felons, people convicted of domestic violence, and individuals with serious mental health conditions. Legal gun owners in Ohio are also still prohibited from carrying inside schools and government buildings, and are not allowed to consume any alcohol while carrying, also tracking with other states.

As has been the case wherever conservatives advance pro-Second Amendment legislation, Ohio liberals vehemently opposed the institution of constitutional carry, insisting that it would lead to a rise in gun violence. Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther called permitless carry “reckless and dangerous,” while the Ohio Democrat Party predicted the change would “make all Ohioans less safe” and increase gun crime.

But the data cited by Yost’s office shows that the exact opposite occurred. In the capital of Columbus and Ohio’s largest city, the rate per 1,000 residents of crime incidents involving a firearm declined from 10.79 in the period June 2021 to June 2022 (one year before constitutional carry took effect) to 9.55 in the period June 2022 to June 2023 (one year after constitutional carry took effect). Every other major city in the state except Cincinnati and Dayton saw a similar decline.

As Yost emphasized, the report does not “downplay the very real problem of crime in many neighborhoods in our cities – you don’t need a research team to see that gun violence destroys lives, families and opportunity.” However, he continued, “The key takeaway from this study is that we have to keep the pressure on the criminals who shoot people, rather than Ohioans who responsibly exercise their Second Amendment rights.”

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