LET THE CREDIT GROW

Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israel’s war cabinet this week. I wrote briefly about the meeting yesterday in “Annals of strategery.”

As has been obvious for a while now, the Biden administration is undermining Israel’s war on Hamas and defaming the IDF in the process. In the context of Biden’s expression of unqualified support for Israel in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 massacres, it is something of a spectacle — a spectacle of the “boneless wonder” variety.

It is reported in the Israeli media that Blinken cautioned the war cabinet: “I don’t think you have the credit” to fight Hamas to the finish. Here is the close encounter of the blinkin’ kind reported by the Times of Israel, which notes that Blinken’s remarks are quoted only in Hebrew translation by Israel’s Channel 12 news and have been translated back into English here:

Blinken: You can’t operate in southern Gaza in the way you did in the north. There are two million Palestinians there. You need to evacuate fewer people from their homes, be more accurate in the attacks, not hit UN facilities, and ensure that there are enough protected areas [for civilians]. And if not? Then not to attack where there is a civilian population. What is your system of operation?

IDF Chief Herzi Halevi: We follow a number of principles — proportionality, distinction, and the laws of war. There were instances where we attacked on the basis of those principles, and instances where we decided not to attack, because we waited for a better opportunity.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant: The entire Israeli society is united behind the goal of dismantling Hamas, even if it takes months.

Blinken: I don’t think you have the credit for that.

I wrote that some translation (of “credit”) was required to understand what Blinken was saying. The Wall Street Journal provides the requisite translation in its editorial “The Biden-Blinken Rules of War for Israel.” The Journal’s editors translate: “He means credit with President Biden, as the White House bends to the growing pressure against Israel from the Democratic left.”

Man with knife shot by business owner near major intersection in Sanford

SANFORD, Maine —
Police say there is no danger to the public after a shooting near a major intersection in Sanford Friday afternoon.

Officials say they received the first report of a shooting at 3:52 p.m. at the intersection of Main Street (Route 109) and Lebanon Street (Route 202).

Witnesses told police a man with a knife was walking into and out of the road, yelling at cars passing. The man reportedly approached a food truck that was parked near the new T-Mobile store.

Police say the food truck owner and the man with the knife got into a confrontation, that led to the man with the knife being shot.

“The shooter is cooperating with Detectives as they gather evidence and conduct interviews,” police say.

The man with the knife is reportedly in serious condition at Maine Medical Center.

Officials say the investigation is ongoing.

ATF Violates Agreed Upon Timeline By Filing For An Appeal In Pistol Brace Case

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has filed a notice of appeal in a case challenging its rule against pistol braces (FINAL RULE 2021R-08F). Gun Owners of America (GOA) filed a motion for summary judgment a day later.

The case, Texas v. ATF, is a joint effort between GOA, Gun Owners Foundation (GOF), and the state of Texas to take down the ATF’s pistol brace rule.

Just a day before the ATF rule was due to go into effect, Federal District Court Judge Drew Tipton for the Southern District of Texas issued a preliminary injunction (PI) for all GOA members, barring the ATF from taking enforcement actions against them. This ruling came on the heels of the Mock v. Garland Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that blocked enforcement of the rule on Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) members. Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) also got a preliminary injunction against the rule before the rule’s effective date.

“For these reasons, the Court GRANTS IN PART Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction, (Dkt. No. 16). Defendants are ENJOINED from enforcing the Final Rule against the private Plaintiffs in this case, including its current members and their resident family members, and individuals employed directly by the State of Texas or its agencies. The preliminary injunction will remain in effect pending resolution of the expedited appeal in Mock v. Garland,” the order reads.

Since then, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has expanded the injunction to cover everyone in the nation, effectively killing the ATF’s rule. Before that happened, according to GOA, all parties agreed to the timeline in the Texas v. ATF case.

It is unlikely that the Fifth Circuit of Appeals would overturn Judge Tipton’s decision. The Fifth Circuit is openly hostile to the ATF’s use of the rule-making process.

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Kamala Harris & John Kerry Jet to Dubai to Lecture about ‘Climate Crisis’

Vice President Kamala Harris and “Climate Czar” John Kerry are jetting off to Dubai to give lectures on fighting “global warming.”

The heroic eco-warriors will be joining Democrat President Joe Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken to participate in the United Nations (UN) COP 28 summit.

The conference is a two-week-long event designed to promote climate alarmism fears among the public in an effort to promote the globalist green agenda.

Over 70,000 attendees are expected to be flown into Dubai on carbon-spewing jets to attend the event.

“To put it simply, the COP is where the world comes together to agree on ways to address the climate crisis, such as limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, helping vulnerable communities adapt to the effects of climate change, and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050,” a description of the conference states.

“COP 28 refers to the United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from 30 November until 12 December 2023.”

Kerry, Blinken, Harris, and various others make up the U.S. delegation to the conference, according to the State Department.

The department noted that Harris will attend December 1-2.

“Once again, the Biden administration exposes the hypocrisy of their own radical green fantasy,” GOP Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa told Fox News.

“Joe Biden’s Climate Czar is jetting off again emitting the greenhouse gases he warns against, wasting taxpayer dollars, and undermining U.S. strength on the world stage.

“While the Biden administration’s weakness has caused chaos across the globe, President Biden doubles down on combating climate change instead of terrorism.”

The Biden administration has been heavily promoting the green agenda’s climate alarmist ideology.

GOP Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) and some other Republican lawmakers want to pass a measure to prohibit federal funds from being spent on Kerry’s agenda.

Kerry serves as Biden’s unelected and unregulated “Special Presidential Envoy for Climate.”

The role didn’t exist before Biden took office and appears to have been invented specifically for his old friend Kerry.

“Biden’s climate czar John Kerry jetted off to Dubai this week to sell out U.S. economic security to the climate cult,” Roy’s press office tweeted.

“Rep. Roy has a bill that would DEFUND John Kerry’s office (H. R. 4751).”

U.N. Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell dramatically declared during a speech:

“If we do not signal the terminal decline of the fossil fuel era as we know it, we welcome our own terminal decline.”

December 2

1763 – The Touro Synagogue, in Newport, Rhode Island is dedicated, the first synagogue in what will become the United States.

1766 – Swedish parliament approves the Swedish Freedom of the Press Act and implements it as a ground law, the first nation in the world with legislated freedom of speech.

1823 – In a State of the Union message, President Monroe proclaims American neutrality in future European conflicts, and warns European powers not to interfere in the Americas; the ‘Monroe Doctrine’.

1845 – In a State of the Union message, President Polk proposes that the United States should aggressively expand into the West; the ‘Manifest Destiny’.

1859 – In Charles Town Virginia, abolitionist leader John Brown is hanged for his October 16 raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia.

1865 – Alabama, North Carolina and Georgia ratify the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

1899 – During the Philippine–American War, at Tirad Pass on Luzon, a 60 man Filipino force commanded by Brigadier General Gregorio del Pilar fights a rear guard action against 500 Americans, mostly of the 33rd Volunteer Infantry Regiment under Major Peyton C. March, delaying the American advance long enough to ensure that President Emilio Aguinaldo and his troops escape before all but 8 solders are killed. It’s remembered as the “Filipino Thermopylae”.

1917 – During World War I, Russia and the Central Powers sign an armistice at Brest-Litovsk, ending Russian involvement in the war.

1927 – The Ford Motor Company unveils the Model A as its new model of automobile.

1930 –In a State of the Union message, President Hoover proposes a $150 million public works program to help generate jobs and stimulate the economy.

1942 – Somewhere in the Pacific ocean, approximately half way between Japan and the Hawaiian islands, the coded radio message, Niitakayama Nobore “Climb Mount Niitaka”, is received on the flagship of Japan’s 1st Air Fleet and given to Admiral Nagumo. The code words are his orders to open a set of top secret documents which confirm that Japan will be going to war with the United States, and to execute the plan to attack Pearl Harbor. It also gives the date to commence the attack, December 8th, which is the 7th on the Hawaiian side of the International Date Line.
At the same time, a team led by Enrico Fermi initiates the first artificial self sustaining nuclear chain reaction in the hand built Chicago Pile-1 reactor under the University of Chicago’s Stagg Field as part of the Manhattan Project.

1947 – Arab residents of Jerusalem break out in riot in response to the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine.

1954 – The Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, between the United States and Taiwan, is signed in Washington, D.C., remaining in effect until 1980.

1962 – After a trip to Vietnam at the request of President Kennedy, Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield becomes the first American official to comment adversely on the war’s progress.

1970 – The United States Environmental Protection Agency begins operations.

1971 – Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Fujairah, Sharjah, Dubai, and Umm al-Quwain form the United Arab Emirates.

1980 – 4 American missionaries, Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, Ursuline Dorothy Kazel, and Jean Donovanare kidnapped, raped and murdered by El Salvadoran National Guard troops near San Salvador.

1982 – At the University of Utah, Barney Clark becomes the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart, surviving for 112 days afterwards.

1993 – Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar is shot and killed in Medellín.

2015 – Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik attack a Christmas party at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, killing 14 people and wounding 22 before finally being killed in a running street shootout with police

2016 – Fire breaks out at a warehouse converted into an artist’s collective, in Oakland, California, killing 36 people

2020 – Cannabis is removed from the list of most dangerous drugs of the international drug control treaty by the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs.

FED. JUDGE STRIKES HANDGUN SALES BAN FOR 18-20 YR. OLDS IN W.VA CASE

BELLEVUE, WA – A federal district court judge in West Virginia has ruled that a federal law prohibiting handgun sales to 18-20-year-olds is “facially unconstitutional,” and granted a summary judgment in a case brought by the Second Amendment Foundation.

In a 40-page decision, U.S. District Chief Judge Thomas S. Kleeh with the Northern District of West Virginia wrote, “(B)ecause Plaintiffs’ conduct – the purchase of handguns – ‘fall[s] [within] the Second Amendment’s ‘unqualified command’ and the challenged statutes and regulations are not ‘consistent with the Nation’s historic tradition of firearm regulation,’ the Court FINDS 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(b)(1) and (c)(1) facially unconstitutional and as applied to Plaintiffs.”

He enjoined the defendants—in this case the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, ATF Director Steven Dettelbach and Attorney General Merrick Garland—from enforcing the provisions “against Plaintiffs and otherwise-qualified 18-to-20-year-olds.”

“This is a huge victory for Second Amendment rights, especially for young adults,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “The Biden Justice Department argued that people in this age group were not adults, which was patently ludicrous. The government simply could not defend the constitutionality of the handgun prohibition, and Judge Kleeh’s ruling makes that clear.”

“There was never any historical evidence supporting this arbitrary ban on the purchase and ownership of handguns by young adults,” noted SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “As we maintained all along, history goes in the opposite direction. At that age historically, young adults were considered mature enough to serve in the militia, the military and take on other responsibilities. We’re delighted with the judge’s ruling.”

The case was filed in September 2022. Joining SAF were the West Virginia Citizens Defense League and individual citizens Steven Robert Brown and Benjamin Weekly. They were represented by attorneys John H. Bryan of Union, W.Va., and SAF’s Kraut, who is a practicing attorney based in Westtown, Pa.

U.N. CONFERENCE PUSHES ANTI-HUNTING ‘MEATLESS’ AGENDA TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE

Leaders of the world’s developed and undeveloped countries are gathering in Dubai for the 28th U.N. Convention of Parties (COP28) on climate action. It’s a global confab for privileged leaders to fly their private jets around the world – including Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry – to meet and talk about “climate science.”

But anti-hunting, animal rights activists are piling on the climate agenda this year with major efforts to force developed countries to cut back on burgers and steaks.

“The world’s most-developed nations will be told to curb their excessive appetite for meat as part of the first comprehensive plan to bring the global agrifood industry into line with the Paris climate agreement,” Bloomberg reported. Coincidentally, that’s the same media company owned by the billionaire gun control piggy bank and failed presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg.

U.S. officials should tell U.N. officials to pound sand. It’s a backwards and laughable proposal for many reasons. Such an effort would end up penalizing America’s millions of hunters. And that, consequently, would harm many more millions of less fortunate families in need of good, healthy meals – especially during the holiday season.

Meatless Mandate Manure

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Personal Defense And The Law
Knowledge of self-defense involves more than knowing how to draw your firearm or marksmanship.

Not long ago, I heard about an incident I want to bring to your attention. A motorist, traveling outside his state of residence, was the victim of a minor traffic accident. However, during the investigation, an officer found two handguns in his car. The motorist was arrested for carrying without a permit, a felony in that particular state.

The problem was that the motorist had a concealed-carry permit alright—but only in his home state. This man was not a criminal. He had no prior-arrest record. He simply was in a state that refused to recognize another state’s license. What that oversight meant for this gentleman was a trip to jail, very expensive legal fees and possible time in prison—and loss of his Second Amendment rights.

We spend a lot of time talking about guns and gear and even some time talking about tactics. But, I’m not sure we spend enough time discussing the various laws concerning personal defense. It is possible to be otherwise justified in defending oneself, yet still be charged with a crime for some violation of legal procedure.

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You don’t say

Explosion of concealed handguns means someone nearby is carrying

The tripling of people with concealed gun permits combined with the majority of states that no longer license owners who want to carry means that someone near you right now is likely packing heat.

“It is very likely that any place that allows people to carry a concealed handgun will have someone carrying their gun,” said a new report shared with Secrets from John R. Lott’s Crime Prevention Research Center.

WHY GOOGLE IS KILLING OFF MILLIONS OF ACCOUNTS STARTING THIS WEEK

Lott has long followed the explosion in government-issued concealed carry permits. His 74-page report said that the percentage of people carrying guns rose from 5.4% in 2017 to 15.6% today.

Overall, he said, there are 21.8 million permits issued. That’s a decrease of 0.5% from last year.

But that’s not bad news for proponents of the Second Amendment and concealed carry laws.

Lott explained that the leveling off of permits is likely due to the surge in states that now allow citizens to carry their handguns without a permit. The growth of so-called constitutional carry states has reached 27 and is the biggest story in the gun world.

“In other words, people in those 27 states are allowed to carry concealed handguns without permits, representing 65% of the land in the country and 44% of the population in 2022,” his report said. “It is clear that more people are legally carrying.”

“What does this mean in practice? It means that in most places where people are allowed to carry a concealed handgun, there will be someone carrying a concealed handgun. If the probability that any one person has a concealed handgun permit is 5.4%, in a room with 10 people, the probability that at least one person will have a permitted concealed handgun is 43%. In a room with 20 people, that probability goes up to 67%. With 40, that probability rises to 89%,” the report said.

The growth follows the surge in violent crime and increase in gun ownership in America, where for the first time a majority say that they live in gun-owning homes. The state permitting data his team reviewed found that black permitting is up 223%, Asian 163%, and women 23%.

He also said that in states where there is a high number of concealed carriers, crime is down.

Good guys with guns save lives. Don’t believe the hype.

Gun control advocates keep claiming that good guys with guns are not effective at stopping mass shootings. But it looks that way only if we rely on the news media and the government for crime data.

Records of media reports that I have compiled since the beginning of 2021 show police have noted in 33 cases in which a concealed handgun permit holder stopped what appeared to be a mass murder in the making. But few of these heroic cases have gotten national news attention.

Police are very important in stopping crime, but they have a limited ability to stop attacks.

“A deputy in uniform has an extremely difficult job in stopping these attacks,” noted Kurt Hoffman, a Sarasota County, Fla sheriff. He said that mass shooters can “wait for a deputy to leave the area or pick an undefended location” as an advantage over police. Even with a visible police or security presence, he said, “Those in uniform who can be readily identified as guards may as well be holding up neon signs saying, ‘Shoot me first.’”

There’s a good reason that air marshals don’t wear uniforms on planes. By being inconspicuous, they prevent attackers from having a tactical advantage.

My research also revealed that recent cases such as the Lewiston, Maine, and the  Nashville Covenant School attacks occurred in gun-free zones where patrons are either discouraged from carrying guns or face fines and imprisonment for having them. Very few in the media have covered that fact.

The Nashville police chief, who got a look at the murderer’s entire manifesto, noted that the murderer originally targeted another location but decided against that “because of a threat assessment by the suspect of too much security.” The Buffalo mass murderer last year wrote in his manifesto that “areas where [concealed carry weapons] are outlawed or prohibited may be good areas of attack.”

My research shows it’s hard to ignore the enormous amount of mass public shootings that occur in places where guns are banned.

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No, they’re anti-Semitic and proud of it….

The Unhinged Among Us
Is the pro-Hamas crowd ignorant of Middle East history?

October 7 should have been an open-and-shut case of moral condemnation.

During peace and holiday, invading Hamas gunmen murdered, tortured, mass raped, decapitated, and mutilated some 1,200 Israelis. The vast majority were unarmed women, children, infants, and the elderly.

The cowardly murderers proudly filmed their atrocities and then fled back to Gaza—to cheers from the Gaza street.

Before Israel even retaliated, the mass murdering of Jews earned praise from the Middle East, the international hard left, and especially the faculty and students of elite Western campuses.

When the Israeli Defense Forces struck back, the killers dispersed to the safety of their multibillion-dollar subterranean cities. The cowardly elite architects of the mass murder fled to Arab sanctuaries in Lebanon and Qatar.

From its headquarters burrowed below hospitals, mosques, and schools, Hamas bartered hostages for a reprieve from the IDF and the release of its own convicted terrorists in Israeli jails.

Hamas shot any of its own supporters who refused to shield Hamas gunmen.

It continued launching rockets at Israeli civilian centers. It serially lied about its casualties, expropriating intended relief food and fuel for its underground tunnel city of killers.

Abroad, Hamas supporters also emulated the methods of the pro-Nazi demonstrators in Western cities of the 1930s. Unlike their pro-Israel critics, the pro-Hamas demonstrators in the U.S. and Europe turned violent.

They took over and defaced private and public property. They chanted genocidal anti-Semitic slogans calling for erasure of the nation of Israel.

They interrupted shoppers, blocked highways, attacked businesses, and swarmed bridges. They assaulted police.

The majority wore masks to hide their identities in the fashion of anti-semitic Klansmen.

Why did the doctrinaire left, the youth of the Democratic Party, and the campuses outdo each other in their anti-semitic venom toward Israel?

For the first time in their lives, many of the ignorant protestors suddenly professed concern about refugees, colonialism, disproportionality, innocent civilians, and the rules of war.

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December 1

1640 – Portugal acclaims João IV as King of Portugal ending the personal union of Portugal and Spain by King Philip III of Spain.

1821 – José Núñez de Cáceres wins the independence of the Dominican Republic from Spain and names the new territory the Republic of Spanish Haiti.

1822 – Peter I is crowned Emperor of Brazil.

1824 – In the U.S. presidential election, since no candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes, the House of Representatives is given the task of deciding the winner in accordance with the 12th Amendment to the Constitution in the race between Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and William Crawford. (John Quincy Adams is elected)

1862 – In his State of the Union Address, President Lincoln reaffirms the necessity of ending slavery as ordered 10 weeks earlier in the Emancipation Proclamation.

1878 – President Rutherford B. Hayes gets the first telephone installed in the White House

1913 – Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving assembly line.

1924 – The National Hockey League’s first United States based franchise, the Boston Bruins, plays their first game in league play at home

1941 – At an imperial conference, Emperor Hirohito gives the final approval to initiate “War against the United States, United Kingdom and the Kingdom of the Netherlands.”

1955 – In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat and is arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation laws.

1958 – A fire at Our Lady of the Angels School in Chicago kills 92 children and 3 nuns.

1959 – The U.S. and 11 other countries that were active in Antarctica during the International Geophysical Year of 1957–58 sign the Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent.

1964 – President Johnson and his top ranking advisers meet to discuss plans to bomb North Vietnam.

1969 – During the Vietnam War, the first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II.

1974 – TWA Flight 514, a Boeing 727, crashes northwest of Dulles International Airport, killing all 92 passengers and crew aboard, and Northwest Airlines Flight 6231, another Boeing 727, crashes northwest of John F. Kennedy International Airport killing the 3 crew on the jet chartered to pick up the Baltimore Colts football team in Buffalo, New York

1984 – NASA conducts the Controlled Impact Demonstration, where a remote controlled Boeing 720 airliner is deliberately crashed at Rogers Dry Lake in California’s Mojave Desert, in order to test technologies and gather data to help improve survivability of crashes.

1989 – East Germany’s parliament abolishes the constitutional provision granting the Communist Party the leading role in state government.

1997 – At the Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky, teenager Michael Carneal opens fire on a group of praying students, killing 3 and wounding 5 before surrendering to the school’s principal.

2019 – The first known case of COVID-19 is seen in China.

2020 – The Arecibo Telescope in Puerto Rico collapses