Burial at Arlington? Army looks at changing rules for who is eligible for interment

WASHINGTON – Troops who die on active duty but not in combat would no longer be eligible for burial at Arlington National Cemetery, according to a proposal released Wednesday by the Army aimed at conserving space at the nation’s most hallowed ground for fallen troops.

Without changes to eligibility, the cemetery, home to the remains of privates and presidents, would run out of room in 30 years to inter even troops who have been awarded the Medal of Honor.

The new criteria for burial include troops killed in combat, recipients of the Silver Star or a higher award, wounded who have received the Purple Heart, former prisoners of war, presidents and vice presidents, and combat veterans who have exceptional records of public service.

The new eligibility rules at the cemetery also would allow certain veterans, including those from the World War II era, to be laid to rest at the cemetery in above-ground facilities.

Acting Army Sec. Ryan McCarthy also proposed setting aside 1,000 grave sites for recipients of the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award for valor.

“Arlington National Cemetery is a national shrine for all Americans, but especially those who have served our great nation,” McCarthy said in a statement. “We must ensure it can honor those we have lost for many years to come.”

Congress mandated the proposed rule changes, which will be open to public comment. Without changes to eligibility, the 155-year-old cemetery would be filled to capacity sometime after 2050.

House Sustains Vetoes Of Anti-Gun Bills In New Hampshire

Anti-gun Representatives tried and failed on Wednesday, September 18th to override Governor Chris Sununu’s vetoes of three-anti gun bills.

House Bill 109 would have effectively banned the private transfer of firearms, with exemptions too narrow to matter.  As written, the bill would have imposed a definition of “commercial sales” broad enough to cover private transactions at gun shows, forcing nearly all individuals transfer through Federal Firearm Licensed (FFL) dealers.  Between 1) the narrowness of the bill’s supposed “exemptions” for private individuals outside of gun shows; and 2) the broad scope of the definition for “commercial sales,” the “exemptions” for New Hampshire citizens were effectively useless.

House Bill 514 would have hindered the Second Amendment rights of New Hampshire citizens by imposing an arbitrary three-day waiting period (excluding weekends and holidays) between citizens and the firearms they purchase.  Limited “exemptions” were hitched to requirements involving prolonged safety courses and certain long gun purchases.

House Bill 564 would have prohibited law-abiding citizens from carrying firearms for self-defense while on school grounds (except when picking-up or dropping-off students and, even then, only if the firearm remained in the vehicle).  This counterintuitive law would have impeded the very type of protection that citizens and students deserve under the Second Amendment.  The bill’s wonky “exemptions” for leaving firearms in vehicles were riddled with limitations that would have forced parents to make an absurd choice between their family’s security or their child’s participation in school activities.

Sometimes you have to come to the conclusion that TPTB in congress really don’t want to deal with it anyway; except as a grandstand for their next re-election campaign.

ATF says bump stock possession is still a felony.

 

U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- In the latest court filing, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, (ATF) has stated that they do not possess the authority to legislate the banning of bump stocks.

A bump stock is a device that allows the user to use the recoil of the firearm in conjunction with a forward pushing motion on the handguard to pull the trigger rapidly. In theory, this combination enables the user to increase the rate of fire of a firearm.

On the day after Christmas in 2018, the ATF released a final ruling on bump stocks stating that the devices are “machine guns.” All machine guns are a National Firearms Act (NFA) Item. Since the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986 bans citizens from owning any machine gun produced after 1986, it made every bump stock illegal.

Owners of bump stocks could either destroy their device or turn them over to law enforcement to hold or be destroyed. States like Washington State held bump stock buybacks which paid owners $100 to turn in their bump stocks. If a bump stock owner refused to turn in their device or make it inoperable, they faced a $10,000 fine in ten years in federal prison.

In Aposhian v. Barr, et al., Firearms instructor W. Clark Aposhian of Utah sued Attorney General Bob Barr. He claimed that the ATF lacks the authority to change the definition of a machine gun. The plaintiff further asserts that only congress can make a new federal law that would ban the device.

AmmoLand reached out to our sources in the Firearms Technology Branch of the ATF. Our source, who was not authorized to talk on the matter stated that the new interpretation of machine gun did not come from their branch. He went onto point out that a person doesn’t need a bump stock to bump fire a rifle. He explained how common items like belt loops or rubber bands can be used to bump fire a gun.

Our source went onto say that the Firearms Technology Branch has reviewed bump stocks on multiple occasions since getting one from Slide Fire in 2010. Every time, they have ruled that these devices do not violate the NFA. He speculates that it was pressure from the White House that caused the definition to change, but he states that he doesn’t have direct evidence.

I reached out to several other ATF agents and lawyers about the court filing. All our contacts expressed the view that this admittance isn’t a deal. In the eyes of the ATF, anyone caught with a bump stock is still guilty of a felony, and they will fully prosecute the owner to the full extent of the law.

The ATF isn’t arguing in court that they have the legal authority to change the definition of a machine gun. The ATF is merely claiming they are using the “best interpretation” of the statute.

Sources close to the case on the plaintiff side have also told me that this admittance from the ATF doesn’t do much other than creating headlines. This court filing is not the end of the case, and in all likelihood will have little effect on the outcome since the ATF has never claimed to have the power to legislate.

AmmoLand reached out to several sources in the ATF, but none were willing to go on the record.

The Bill of Rights: A Transcription | National Archives

The Bill of Rights. The document on permanent display in the Rotunda is the enrolled original Joint Resolution passed by Congress on September 25, 1789, proposing 12-not 10-amendments to the Constitution.

On September 25, 1789, the First Congress of the United States proposed 12 amendments to the Constitution. The 1789 Joint Resolution of Congress proposing the amendments is on display in the Rotunda in the National Archives Museum. Ten of the proposed 12 amendments were ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures on December 15, 1791. The ratified Articles (Articles 3–12) constitute the first 10 amendments of the Constitution, or the U.S. Bill of Rights. In 1992, 203 years after it was proposed, Article 2 was ratified as the 27th Amendment to the Constitution. Article 1 was never ratified.

Transcription of the 1789 Joint Resolution of Congress Proposing 12 Amendments to the U.S. Constitution

Congress of the United States begun and held at the City of New-York, on Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

(The preamble in the first paragraph that follows is most important. It explains that the Bill Of Rights was to be a restriction on the government, not on the people)

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

Article the first… After the first enumeration required by the first article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand, until the number shall amount to one hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall be not less than one hundred Representatives, nor less than one Representative for every forty thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to two hundred; after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons.

Article the second… No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.

Article the third… Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Article the fourth… A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Article the fifth… No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Article the sixth… The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Article the seventh… No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Article the eighth… In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Article the ninth… In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Article the tenth… Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Article the eleventh… The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Article the twelfth… The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

ATTEST,

Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, Speaker of the House of Representatives
John Adams, Vice-President of the United States, and President of the Senate
John Beckley, Clerk of the House of Representatives.
Sam. A Otis Secretary of the Senate

Missouri Man Pleads Guilty to Role in Plotting ISIS Attack

A Missouri man pleaded guilty on Monday to attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State (ISIS), the Justice Department said Tuesday.

Robert Lorenzo Hester Jr., 28, was arrested in February 2017. Prosecutors have said that he reached out to undercover FBI agents who were posing as ISIS operatives to say he was willing to help with an attack.

He was told the attack would target “buses, trains and a train station in Kansas City” on Presidents Day, according to the affidavit.

Hester expressed interest in helping ISIS from October 2016 to February 2017, authorities say, and his guilty plea is his admission of wanting to provide support to the terror organization.

500 Scientists Write U.N.: ‘There is No Climate Emergency’

500 scientists/climate professionals vs 1 autistic kid and we’re still having this controversy?

More than 500 scientists and professionals in climate and related fields have sent a “European Climate Declaration” to the Secretary-General of the United Nations asking for a long-overdue, high-level, open debate on climate change.

Just as 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg addressed the U.N. Climate Action Summit in New York accusing world leaders of robbing her of her future, scientists were begging the United Nations to keep hysteria from obscuring facts.

“Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific,” the declaration states. “Scientists should openly address the uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real benefits as well as the imagined costs of adaptation to global warming, and the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of mitigation.”

The scientists underscored the importance of not rushing into enormously expensive climate action before fully ascertaining the facts.

Hands Off My Gun, Pops

One of these days I will put together a list of the most commonly held incorrect assumptions about popular social attitudes in the US. Included in said list will be the belief that young people are enthusiastic gun grabbers who are finally going to see to it that the American citizenry is forcibly disarmed. David Hogg was an organic phenomenon, grown out of the fertile soil of young men who spent their teenage years playing Call of Duty, after all–nothing manufactured about his story!

From a YouGov survey released a few days ago, results from the three questions addressing gun control by respondent age cohort:

Parenthetically, “buyback” is an Orwellian term. To buy something back, one must first sell the thing. The federal government didn’t sell any of these guns. It didn’t manufacture any of them, either. Such a program would not involve buying anything back–it would involve the theft of the personal property of American citizens in blatant violation of the US Constitution–with forcibly stolen funds, of course.

Why U.S. Patriot missiles failed to stop drones and cruise missiles attacking Saudi oil sites.
The U.S. is having trouble defending against low-flying drones and cruise missiles after years of the Pentagon focusing on longer-range threats.

A lot depends on the word “if”. In any event, the effectiveness of military defensive and offensive gear is a constant see-saw battle. Iran apparently detected this weakness and exploited it.
As has been said: “Only the enemy will tell you where you are weak.”

The United States is sending American troops to the Middle East to provide better air and missile defenses after an aerial attack on Saudi oil targets last week. The raid began around 4 a.m. on the morning of Sept. 14, with explosions rippling across the Kurais and Abqaiq Aramco oil processing facilities inside Saudi Arabia as the sound of defensive automatic machine-gun fire rang in the air.

In theory, the oil facilities both lay under the defensive umbrella of Patriot PAC-2 surface-to-air missile batteries that the U.S. sold to Saudi Arabia to intercept aircraft and missiles up to 100 miles away. However, if Saudi radars detected the 18 triangular drones and seven cruise missiles (judging by recovered debris) that bombarded them last week, they did so too late. Instead, they were forced to fire sporadically with automatic weapons, which didn’t prevent widespread damage that temporarily disrupted shipments of 5.7 million barrels of oil daily — half of Saudi Arabia’s output.

Indeed, while the U.S. troops are intended to provide help against this type of threat — believed to have been launched by Iran — air attacks by low-flying drones and cruise missiles are exactly the types of systems the U.S. is having trouble defending against after years of focusing on longer-range threats.

The Tragedy Of Greta Thunberg
Our Lady of Sorrows

Sixteen-year-old Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg lives in the healthiest, wealthiest, safest, and most peaceful era humans have ever known. She is one of the luckiest people to have ever lived.

In a just world, Thunberg would be at the United Nations thanking capitalist countries for bequeathing her this remarkable inheritance. Instead, she, like millions of other indoctrinated kids her age, act as if they live in a uniquely broken world on the precipice of disaster. This is a tragedy.

“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,” Thunberg lectured the world. And maybe she’s right. We’ve failed her by raising a generation of pagans who’ve filled the vacuum left by the absence of faith, not with rationality, but with a cultish worship of Mother Earth and the state. Although, to be fair, the Bible-thumping evangelical’s moral certitude is nothing but a rickety edifice compared to the moral conviction of a Greta Thunberg.

It’s not, of course, her fault. Adults have spent a year creating a 16-year-old because her soundbites comport with their belief system. It was “something about her raw honesty around a message of blunt-force fear [that] turned this girl from invisible to global,” says CNN in a news report about a child with a narrow, age-appropriate, grasp of the world.

It should be noted that “blunt-force fear” is indeed the correct way to describe the concerted misinformation that Thunberg has likely been subjected to since nursery school. There probably isn’t a public school in America that hasn’t plied the panic-stricken talk of environmental disaster in their auditoriums over and over again. New York City and other school systems offer millions of kids an excused absence so they could participate in political climate marches this week, as if it were a religious or patriotic holiday.

We’ve finally convinced a generation of Americans to be Malthusians. According to Scott Rasmussen’s polling, nearly 30 percent of voters now claim to believe that it’s “at least somewhat likely” that the earth will become uninhabitable and humanity will be wiped out over the next 10-15 years. Half of voters under 35 believe it is likely we are on the edge of extinction. Is there any wonder why our youngest generation has a foreboding sense of doom?

IGNORANCE ON GUNS: COMMON, BUT INEXCUSABLE

It is remarkable how little most people who are adamantly opposed to firearms know about them. In general, of course, blissful ignorance of guns is perfectly fine. But if you are a legislator, and you set out to ban something, you do have a duty to know what it is you want to make illegal.

Sheila Jackson Lee is the latest to embarrass herself. She wants to ban America’s most popular rifle, and she knows nothing about it. Not only that, she lies in support of her policy preference:

As I said, there is nothing wrong with being ignorant of a subject–unless you are a legislator, and you want to force everyone else to conform to your ignorant views.

No climate emergency for polar bears or walrus means no climate emergency period

We are told the Arctic is warming twice as fast as anywhere else in the world, yet as the internet reverberates with shrill, almost-the-lowest-ice-extent-ever stories, polar bears, Pacific walrus, and the most common ice seal species (ringed and bearded seals, as well as harp seals), are all thriving.  Two new videos published by the GWPF on polar bears and walrus confront this conundrum and the conclusion is clear: if there is no climate emergency for polar bears, there is no climate emergency anywhere.


Resident Shoots 2 Home Invaders, Killing 1

Northeast Philadelphia resident shot two men who broke into their home early Monday. One man died, while another was hurt. The incident along Walker Street remained under investigation.

Father/daughter team defends themselves against Salina home invader

A home intruder got a lot more than he bargained for when he tried to break into a Salina home late last week.

A Salina man and his daughter are safe after a home invasion Thursday night.

Ron, “Rodeo,” Griffin had never met the man who kicked in the door to his home on Thursday night, but he wasn’t about to let a stranger harm his daughter.

The man who broke into the home was bleeding from his foot, and told Griffin that he was running away from someone. But when the man closed Griffin’s door and tried to lock it, Griffin felt threatened. He called to his daughter and asked her to grab his gun.

Father and daughter had prepared for emergency situations like the one they encountered Thursday night, and she knew exactly what to do. Griffin was able to hold the man at gunpoint until the police came and took the intruder into custody.

Griffin says he’s proud of his daughter and glad they are safe.

Man shot in attempt to burglarize Sylvan Drive home

The victims of an early-morning burglary and assault turned the tables on their attacker, shooting the 25-year-old suspect, according to police.

Jeremy Brister was transported by Hamilton County EMS to a local hospital around 1:30 a.m. Saturday after police responded to a report of a person being shot on the 600 block of Sylvan Drive.

“Officers secured the scene and called for the CPD Violent Crimes Unit to respond,” reads a news release from the Chattanooga Police Department.

Investigators determined that Brister had entered the residence illegally, assaulting both residents, a 38-year old woman and a male juvenile, before he was shot.

Brister is being charged with aggravated criminal trespass, aggravated burglary and two counts of aggravated domestic assault, according to the release. He is currently at the hospital and will be transported to the Hamilton County Jail after he is released.

White House infighting thwarts movement on guns

Applause

Competing factions inside the White House have stymied efforts to unite behind gun legislation, further delaying President Donald Trump from getting behind any plan.

On one side is Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and adviser, and Attorney General William Barr. Both are urging the president to back new firearms restrictions — including expanded background checks for gun sales — insisting he can be the leader who succeeds on an intractable issue that has bedeviled his predecessors and that he can win back moderate suburban voters in the process, according to people involved in the discussions.

On the other side, a group that includes Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son and an avid hunter, and a top aide to acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, is telling Trump he risks losing support from his conservative base if he pushes too aggressively on new gun control legislation, they say.

Then there’s Trump, who has heard all of these arguments privately but publicly hasn’t committed to any plan. For weeks, he’s left Washington guessing on whether he’d support any gun control legislation and what form the legislation would take.

The competing forces have created paralysis with just about everybody involved in the discussions — most notably senators — and have delayed the White House’s release of its long-awaited package, possibly jeopardizing the effort to enact meaningful legislation following this summer’s mass shootings that claimed dozens of lives.

The White House didn’t initially respond to a request for comment but after publication spokesman Hogan Gidley refuted the story.

“This is ridiculous, we are completely united in developing exactly what the President wants — which are meaningful solutions that will protect the second Amendment, make American communities safer and potentially prevent these types of tragedies from ever occurring again,” he said in a statement.

How dare you’: Greta Thunberg tears into world leaders over inaction at U.N. climate summit

“As a friend says on Facebook, when an emotionally disturbed sixteen-year-old is the spokesperson for your movement, maybe it’s not really about science. “

In an angry and emotional speech at the United Nations climate summit on Monday, Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg tore into world leaders for failing to act.

“This is all wrong,” Thunberg said, reading from a piece of paper. “I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean, yet you come to us young people for hope. How dare you.”

“People are suffering,” the 16-year-old continued through tears. “People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are at the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you.”

“How dare you continue to look away and come here saying you are doing enough,” Thunberg added. “You say you hear us and understand the urgency, but no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe.”……..

Thunberg, who has been nominated for a Nobel Prize for her work raising awareness about climate change, has become an inspirational figure for fellow teens. Last month, she sailed from Europe to the United States on a zero-emission yacht.

Comment:
“Climate crusader Greta Thunberg’s “principled” trip across the Atlantic in a carbon fibre and non recyclable plastic boat is going to require at least four crew members to fly across the Atlantic.
Greta Thunberg’s trans-Atlantic voyage on a ‘zero-carbon yacht’ has been rocked by revelations that crew will fly to New York in a gas-guzzling plane to bring the boat back to Europe.
It is claimed that this would generate more emissions than the yacht saves and threatens to leave the 16-year-old’s plans to chart an environmentally friendly route to the United States in tatters.
On Wednesday, the Swedish eco-campaigner left Plymouth on the Malizia II for a two-week journey to the United Nations headquarters where she will address a climate change meeting.
But last night, it was confirmed that two crew will have to fly to the US east coast city to man the 60ft yacht on its return.
‘We added the trip to New York City at very short notice, and as a result two people will need to fly over to the US in order to bring the boat back,’ a Team Malizia spokeswoman told the Times.
She added: ‘The world has not yet found a way to make it possible to cross an ocean without a carbon footprint.’
And a further two sailors who are currently on board the Malizia II with Greta will use air travel to get back to Europe.
In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, “DOH!'”.

The Curious Case of Andy Ngo
How the mainstream media downplay left-wing violence.

Many journalists resent Ngo’s politics, ethics, and sudden success. Yet the establishment media’s approach is the same when Ngo is out of the picture. Antifa is a subject that major media outlets tend to cover once, as a box to be checked. Far-left attacks are treated as isolated incidents rather than episodes in an ongoing story. They are not to be covered like violence from the far right or white nationalists. Andy Ngo covers the story that way—and the media do not like it or the mirror he holds up to them.

The establishment media’s lopsided approach to political violence ultimately damages both our politics and journalism. Politics are supposed to function as nonviolent dispute resolution. Weimar-style street brawling is a signpost on the path to the collapse of normal politics, one we ignore at our peril. Pretending that groups such as Antifa are not a problem is a tactic that will be noticed by at least half the country, accelerate the vicious cycle of our political discourse, and desensitize partisans to political violence of all stripes.

Turning a blind eye to left-wing violence may have the corollary effect of burning up whatever moral and institutional capital the establishment media have left. The media will be seen as knuckling under to—or even embracing—Antifa’s core beliefs. After all, many progressives already believe hate speech is no different from physical assault, which is the root of Antifa’s belief in preemptive violence.

To blame Andy Ngo for injuries he suffered while reporting on Antifa, even if one finds him biased, is to tacitly accept Antifa’s general demand that its members are not to be photographed or identified on threat of violence. No respectable journalist would accept that demand from the Ku Klux Klan. Those who accept it here will similarly lose public respect. The establishment media need to do the right thing covering left-wing violence, if only out of self-interest. Whether they will is another story.

Latest Mac Pro to be made in Texas after securing tariff exemptions.

Apple is boosting its commitment to the American workforce, part of a push to invest hundreds of billions into the U.S. economy.

In a major announcement on Monday, Apple said it will build its redesigned Mac Pro in Austin, Texas.

The move comes three days after U.S. trade officials approved exemptions that allow Apple to import key Mac Pro parts from China without them being subject to tariffs.

“The Mac Pro is Apple’s most powerful computer ever and we’re proud to be building it in Austin,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. “We thank the administration for their support enabling this opportunity.”